If we didn't have the patent system and I develop an idea/invention. Once I tried to bring it to market, if it was a good idea, people with the capital would step and take it over, making my time/effort to develop the idea wasted. At least with the patent system the person with the patent has an incentive to develop it.
From personal experience I would say independant invention is probably very common. A good historical example is calculus. With Kepler introducing the need for calculus and unable to com up with it, several people came up with the idea Ferment, Leibniz and Newton.
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/The_rise_of_calculus.html
Personally many times I have come up with a exceptional idea to see that it was already done. Although often times there are not optimally done or left some minor improvements out. Check out patent 7206142, I came up with the idea independently then found that a similar idea was done but not as well. (Check out www.sol-solution.net for details)
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Patent monopolies are neccesary to develop the inventions!
If we didn't have the patent system and I develop an idea/invention. Once I tried to bring it to market, if it was a good idea, people with the capital would step and take it over, making my time/effort to develop the idea wasted. At least with the patent system the person with the patent has an incentive to develop it.
Re: Looking from the other direction...
From personal experience I would say independant invention is probably very common. A good historical example is calculus. With Kepler introducing the need for calculus and unable to com up with it, several people came up with the idea Ferment, Leibniz and Newton.
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/The_rise_of_calculus.html
Personally many times I have come up with a exceptional idea to see that it was already done. Although often times there are not optimally done or left some minor improvements out. Check out patent 7206142, I came up with the idea independently then found that a similar idea was done but not as well. (Check out www.sol-solution.net for details)