Rules I've been taught in 20 years as a R&D design engineer: 1- you are being paid to design new things, new ways. Design something how you think it should be

Rules I've been taught in 20 years as a R&D design engineer: 1- you are being paid to design new things, new ways. Design something how you think it should be designed until told otherwise 2- don't read patents, search for patents about what your working on, and certainly don't "design around" them. This is like sequestration of the jury in a trial, don't pollute your brain 3- let the other folks do their job, they will review your work, tell you what's novel and patentable, what's just regular, and what's not usable because it's covered by other ip and you need to do it not that way, then change those bits as needed. The R&D engineer (or dev, scientist , etc.) needs not be the patent agent, and visa versa. Edited:typo