Deere "bought" a steel plow from a blacksmith, AND he took it, but never paid for it! I'd call that stealing it!
Deere then copied it and marketed it, and it went on from there...
Deere doesn't invent much of anything, they copy and steal designs, like Kinze's planter design... Deere copied it, and it almost broke Kinze to last, sueing deere big time, BUT they ended up winning big time too!!
There are lots of cases on record of things like that...
DM