Bonito Boats

• One purpose of novelty: it would injure the public of known things were removed from public use.
• Anticipation:

federal patent law has long required that an innovation not be anticipated by the prior art in the field. Even if a particular combination of elements is “novel” in the literal sense of the term, it will not qualify for federal patent protection if its contours are so traced by the existing technology in the field that the “improvement is the work of the skillful mechanic, not that of the inventor.”