A patent, or invention, is any assemblage of technologies or ideas that you can put together that nobody put together that way before. That's how the patent office defines it. That's an invention.
“I cannot forget a conversation that I had with an elderly couple from the tribe. They asked me whether I would kill them after I had finished. When I asked them why they asked that, they replied, Because you white men always do!”
“I'm an anorak. I've always been an obsessive collector of things. Richard Briers collects stamps. I collect cars and guns, which are much more expensive, and much more difficult to store.”