More like we were used to hammers as fine art and flyswatters, when someone went "hey! what a great idea!" and patented smacking metal spikes with them. Such is

More like we were used to hammers as fine art and flyswatters, when someone went "hey! what a great idea!" and patented smacking metal spikes with them. Such is a large part of the patent field: doing obvious things with common objects, before anyone else says "hey, that idea is obvious and the parts common!" and making others pay to do it.