Reply by Ocelot

I work for a small engineering firm. We have only a handful of employees. After our development and prototyping, our products are contract manufactured – mostly in the US. But we created them – created the technology and the design. We have sold our products on 5 continents. Without patents – international patents – we would be destroyed by copiers. Some of these patent lawyers bill $500/hour. For us, although patents are very expensive, we have to have them.

Last year we had to lay some people off.

I imagine some of these jig companies are somewhat like us – just a small team of engineers and product development people.

-Paul

-- I intended to be a woodworker, but turned into a tool and lumber collector.