Is the day of the "Backyard Inventor" gone?

[Beware_of_Doug]

@Crafter_Man

Nowadays, the vast majority of inventions are made by people who are “in the industry.” A person who invents a new soda bottle, for example, will most likely work in the packaging industry, attend trade shows, etc.

It’s rare to find an inventor who is an industry outsider.

We’re all too smart these days. Technology that is even potentially useful lawyers up at a very early stage and becomes company secrets. And anything you could figure out by independent puttering in this era of massively funded and manned R & D probably isn’t useful at all.