No patent = no protection. BVM love or hate him has taken the time to patent his products that are innovative and unique. That said one need look at the humongous bin full of stuff that has been cloned over the years in this hobby. The vendors who produce a quality product will thrive, those who don't will fade away. Sometimes the clone is better than the original. Besides a foundry for small items in iconol is not exactly in every industrial area like CNC machines seem to be. He is getting the NGV's and Twheels somewhere outside his facility, perhaps from the same source that some other assembler is using. Yes I use the word assembler, because the CNC machines are too expensive to be just used for the making of shaft tunnels and diffusers by one shop. I doubt that even a outfit as large as GE has all the parts made in house.

Thirty five some years ago at a IMPBA Internats we threatened to fill the pockets of Tom Pretzenka from Octura Products with the crap that we had bought from him over the years and throw him in the water. His stuff was so bad we used to use jigs and dial indicators to check his stuff for trueness and run out in the hobbyshop before purchasing. The defective stuff was returned by the hobby shop. Since then the products have improved, not from his QC but from competition from others.

Did JetJoe steal the design and clone it, sure seems that way. Now if he would just tweak and do something better or different all the naysayers would have to change tune.