The ability to understand the novelty of an idea is critical in many aspects of the innovation process, and it is therefore it is imperative, for if any country that wants to increase the number of inventors and the rate of innovation it needs to make novelty determination significantly easier. Currently, inventors have a multitude of tools for performing prior- art searching that vary in quality, complexity, and price, leaving inventors in a quandary about how to perform an effective prior- art search and the industry as a whole unclear about the novelty of an idea. The Patent Quality through AI (PQAI) project, initiated by AT&T and the Georgia IP Alliance, is creating a prior-art search engine to help drive a shared understanding of novelty. The key to the PQAI strategy is the application of AI, a novel UI and a distributed network architecture along with the reliance on Open Source to create a prior-art search engine that is trusted and transparent, accessible to all, and provides efficient novelty determination. Additionally, the open source design community offers the promise of continuous improvements from the developer community. The ability to efficiently determine novelty will help to create a common understanding of novelty which will significantly drive the innovation process.