An invention must be all three to get a patent, and even then it may have trouble. The story of two hundred years of U.S. patent law and its impossible but necessary task of defining what is an invention.
Polypropylene was invented by many people in many places almost simultaneously.
Eliphalet Nott saw the future and tried to gamble his way there
How do you make perfectly round lead balls for shooting? With a truly simple technology that has hardly changed for centuries.
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