About 40+ years ago, I designed and my equipment welder fabricated a way of mounting a backhoe into my skid steer loader. My welder informed me i was crazy. I had made the mistook of going to my dealer who had sold the machinery to me to ask about hydraulics needed. They told me i was even crazier. Once I had the rig in operation, i was told by many I should get a patent on the setup. I told my welder that maybe he should get a patent, as he had done the actual designing and fabrication. We both decided that a patent would be worthless because by time we had spent all of our money on the legal stuff, which neither of us knew anything about anyway, somebody would come out with a better arrangement.
Within six months, one company was selling a much better setup to do the same thing my welder and I had done. Then, within a few more months, another company had come out with something even better. I was glad i had saved my money, but liked to think that there had been a few spies watching our "invention" to come up with some ideas that were not only better in operation, but safer in use as well. today, every company that slls skid steers does essentially the same as my "original" idea. They not only mount backhoes, but every other imaginal piece of equipment to the fronts of skid steers.
At the same time i had mounted a back hoe to the front of my skid steer, we also designed a method to mount a rake and a scraper to the front as well. It was even simpler than the backhoe mount, but it was another year or so before we saw others coming out with mounts for everything.
Tinker
