The first part of the question, “Why are most patents in the US filed by corporations and not individuals?” followed by the comment, “ Now huge corporations and universities do all the cutting edge research.”
In the late 1800s the lone wolf inventor still existed. The movement to research laboratories was due in part to the ideas of the man Tesla's fans love to hate, Thomas Edison. The myth that Edison was a patent thief is rooted in Edison's legacy of creating an invention factory where Edison used his staff to develop ideas and turn them into patents. Edison realized that using research assistants to do a lot of the trivial tasks in the laboratory was more efficient that doing everything himself. The concept of the invention factory as the reason for his success.
Edison is criticized for taking credit for any individual creativity by his employees. In today's world it is common practice to have research labs where research assistants to do a lot of the trivial tasks in the laboratory.
Even in Tesla's day patent wars took place between large corporations who had the money to fight the wars. Many of Tesla's patents that were purchased by Westinghouse Electric were defended by Westinghouse because they had the money to fight the legal battles.
The second part of the question, “How was Tesla able to do R & D with zero help?” followed by the comment, “Nikola Tesla was able to invent revolutionary technology all by himself.”
Not exactly true, Nikola Tesla did not work in a vacuum, isolated from everything around him. Every one of the “inventions” of Tesla were being worked on by other scientists and inventors of his day. As far as “Nikola Tesla was able to invent revolutionary technology all by himself,” it is interesting to note that there is a case to be made that the Polyphase Electric Motor, the invention that made Nikola Tesla famous, was based on a design that Tesla copied from from Italian inventor Galileo Ferraris.
Contrary to what the Tesla fans say, AC (alternating current) was not invented by Nikola Tesla, Michael Faraday and Hippolyte Pixii were working with Alternating Current and electric motors in the early 1800s, years before Tesla was born. Tesla's greatest fame came in the development of AC (alternating current) power distribution where Tesla did not work alone, but was one of many inventors and engineers employed by George Westinghouse.
During the times that Tesla did not work with Westinghouse, Tesla preferred to work out theories with experiments before implementing it with physical designs. Tesla created small private laboratories with a small staff where he was in total control. For his own experiments, Tesla used his fame and reputation to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars, equivalent to millions of dollars in modern equivalent, for his experiments. I often wonder in an ultra competive shark tank world of today, would Tesla have as easily raised the large sums of money that he did during his day.
http://geekhistory.xyz/content/who-contributed-development-electricity-and-ac-power
http://www.geekhistory.xyz/content/who-responsible-electricity-and-ac-power-our-homes
http://www.geekhistory.com/content/nikola-tesla-versus-thomas-edison-and-search-truth
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https://www.quora.com/What-did-George-Westinghouse-invent/answer/Tom-Peracchio
https://www.quora.com/Who-was-George-Westinghouse/answer/Tom-Peracchio
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Invention and Inventions: Who were some of the great inventors/scientists that are not well-known or recognized today?
Whenever I am asked questions similar two this I usually bring up the names of J.C.R. Licklider and Vannavar Bush.
For all the conversations I see discussing the names of famous geeks who visualized the foundations of the World Wide Web and the Internet, I seldom see J.C.R. Licklider and Vannavar Bush.
How did Thomas Edison invent the light bulb if he dropped out of school at 7?
Is it true that Thomas Alva Edison's mom hid the letter from his school stating that he is unfit for school?
The Guru 42 Universe is not run by a university professor with a team of editors and advisers working to developing a website. Tom Peracchio is simply someone who loves technology and history and is amazed by how little people know about the great minds in the world of technology.
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