There are vastly different values for "knowing something can be done". Consider: Knowing we could get a man to the moon and back pre-1960s vs. knowing we could

There are vastly different values for "knowing something can be done". Consider: Knowing we could get a man to the moon and back pre-1960s vs. knowing we could implement "bounce scroll" on a cellphone. The latter example everyone who is a programmer "knew" prior to the iPhone even if they never actually considered it... because the implementation of it is so amazingly obvious. It is nothing but a good idea, and good ideas aren't supposed to be patentable. Which isn't to say they don't get patented, but that's a side-effect of how fucked up the patent system has become in the past 2 decades, not representative of what patents are supposed to be.