In January, 2009, New Scientist published an article about the current debate in evolutionary biology on Darwin's "tree of life". The emerging view is that biological organisms do not form a neat genealogical tree, but rather a network that is ruled by Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT).

Darwin assumed that descent was exclusively "vertical", with organisms passing traits down to their offspring. But what if species also routinely swapped genetic material with other species, or hybridised with them? Then that neat branching pattern would quickly degenerate into an impenetrable thicket of interrelatedness, with species being closely related in some respects but not others. ...

As more and more genes were sequenced, it became clear that the patterns of relatedness could only be explained if bacteria and archaea were routinely swapping genetic material with other species - often across huge taxonomic distances - in a process called horizontal gene transfer (HGT).

Technology, being closer in complexity to microbes rather than humans, seems to develop by transfer of ideas between different domains. The broker innovation model described in detail in "How Breakthroughs Happen" shows multiple example of solutions transfer from high-tech to low-tech industries. Furthermore, the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (Russian acronym TRIZ) is built around the concept of repeating invention patterns that can be extracted from patented solutions. Also in this mold is template-based creativity approach proposed in Creativity In Product Innovation.

Though the mainstream innovation literature tends to focus on the personality of the inventor, real invention/innovation research work should be directed toward discovery of solution patterns and their proliferation throughout the technology noosphere.