[1] The Full Federal Court of Australia held in Fuchs Lubricants v Quaker Chemical that the patent claims lacked novelty due to public disclosures made by the inventor Mr Thomas before any patent applications were filed.
He considered it would be necessary to conduct trials and experiments using hydraulic fluid in real operational mining equipment, so approached the engineering manager of Peabody Energy Australia Pty Ltd, which operated the Metropolitan mine in NSW.
A further disclosure occurred about a month later when, in the carpark of the Metropolitan mine, Mr Thompson demonstrated his invention to two Peabody managers.
§ 102 establishes various statutory bars to invention patentability with regard to invention novelty; these explicit bars preclude patentability as exceptions to a general underlying entitlement.
For example, books, scientific journals, posters, conference slide presentations, and website articles would all qualify as disclosure media.