i think you're mixing innovation and invention. >just what you'd naturally come up with if you work on the problem long and hard enough yes, there are systema

i think you're mixing innovation and invention. >just what you'd naturally come up with if you work on the problem long and hard enough yes, there are systematic approaches to generate inventions (especially if we use the truly low bar of "patentable" :). Even more, if you look at Einstein and the rest of 20th century science following his methodology, i think there is a systematic approach to making discoveries too. And i suspect that "epiphanies" happen mostly to somebody who worked on the problem long and hard enough. Even "epiphaneous" graphene discovery i think was really a result of the long chain of senselessly looking experiments like levitating a frog (an Ig Noble winner).