I don't think OP was trying to be arrogant, I expect he would have diminished his own previous achievements as well. I've had several projects that resulted in

I don't think OP was trying to be arrogant, I expect he would have diminished his own previous achievements as well. I've had several projects that resulted in "patent pending" applications that I've had to review. It's frustrating to talk to sales and legal folks who want to sell an innovation as if it were some culinary experience for which we've got not only a secret sauce recipe but also world-class chef skills, when I know it wasn't particularly difficult: I just stood in the kitchen with supermarket ingredients, an average palette, and tried variations until it tasted the way I wanted it to. I'm not cooking, I'm building automation equipment, but the fact that you couldn't buy something off the shelf to do a particular task before my efforts was primarily because the application wasn't common enough yet to make it a commodity, not that it was an insurmountable obstacle that I miraculously overcame.