There's one important issue with this picture

You don't have the bigger picture. In fact sometimes you don't even know that a person in another country (or why not, maybe in another university in the same city) did what you were trying to do, or already knows something you don't.

Not to mention the Feuds, aah the feuds. Like something showing up in IEEE but in ACM it's gone and forgotten (or the other way round)

Well yeah, this is why we have a couple of things:

* Literature reviews. Check the published literature before thinking you've got an original research proposal.

* Conference/journal reviewers. If something's unoriginal in your paper, they will reject you in an instant.

Of course. But even with this sometimes it's hard

And reviewers sometimes skip things.

This is a very good reason for open-access, searchable publications.

Completely agreed.