With millions of patents out there, will an idea you come out with be rendered impotent because one of the big companies already owns a patent on the idea? When you are a small fry, don't worry about such things. Build out the idea. Don't let your imagination and creativity be stifled. As a small fry, if you truly believe in building something, go out and build it.

A theme I will always repeat is that good things come to those who fill in the blanks. In my experience, maybe 1 out of 5 people show the balance of ambition, commitment, knowledge of programming, and creativity. So what if you don't have legal rights to a concept. Don't approach every problem in terms of how much money you'd make builing it. Build it because you want something better to exist than whats out there. Build it because there's nothing out there like it and you have the capability to make it happen.

These days, you can draw on resources from people who think this way. Just the other day, I found a Java library from a guy in Australia, Drew Noakes, who put out a Java library from reading metadata from a JPG picture. He offers the code in the public domain. "Imagine all the people living life in peace... You may think I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one."

People who repeatedly show that they can make it happen are a hot commodity. There are two benefits to ignoring artificial boundaries. One is that they breed an environment where chances appear for them to succeed. They gain experience exponentially faster. It's the Dungeon's and Dragons model of success. The more complicated the challenge, the more experience points. You gain levels in your craft by teaming up with others of complimentary skills to conquer tough missions.

For myself, I feel I'm at a higher level where I believe it will take a major very large accomplishment to get to the next level up. I'll keep plugging away. I think to get to the next step, I need to be able to motivate two or three people to help me out.