Maybe I should have said something more like "conceivably could be" rather than "is likely to be". Certainly I didn't mean to imply that every firm in an industry will immediately copy somebody else's good idea. There isn't even a guarantee that a good idea will be recognized as one in the company in which it originates.

But the point is that ideas can be copied without anything like biological reproduction taking place. Why they so seldom are is an interesting question, I've added Deming to my "to read" list.