[Mind-numbed Robot]

Yes. Some of them were later patented.

Good for you. I think "new" ideas are simply new associations of old ideas. Was that your experience?

[null and void]

Sort of. Mostly pulling stuff from widely disparate and unrelated fields and combining and adapting them, some inspiration from The Great Inventor (it’s pretty hard to beat a couple billion years of evolution) and such.

Occasionally something really new happens, though.