For now, the likelihood of a lone inventor joining forces with this corporate giant is uncertain.

He added that this is contrary to the popular image "of a lone inventor having that one critical insight that changes a whole area."

Of course, Edison was not a lone inventor.

The lone inventor whose Yankee ingenuity enables him to build and patent a better mousetrap is a stock American hero.

This fellowship belies the image of "the lone inventor."

The breakthroughs of today, unlike those of a century ago, are more likely to come from collective efforts than from a lone inventor.

This may seem like insignificant tinkering, but the changes would significantly affect the strategies of lone inventors and large corporations seeking to protect their intellectual property.

Patents legendarily protect the lone inventor, the pioneering genius in a garage, against the predation of big companies.

Those lone inventors are out there nonetheless, dreaming of the patent that will make them rich, and they are a familiar species of fraud victim.

At the same time, lone inventors came to be replaced by institutional laboratories, hastening the transition from lab to market.