[MadMax]

I'm not sure that there's very much patentable work in the PTW. Using optics to look through gears might not be a very unobvious idea as there are a lot of examples of optical gates used to look through encoder wheels (servos etc). The upper cylinder assembly might be seen as a close cousin to a split box which has been around for some time.

I really feel sorry for SystemA. They spent a significant amount of trouble in part layout and part design, but in the end there isn't all that much novelty to fill out a patent. Their manufacturing techniques are largely mainstream so duplicating their work isn't particularly difficult if you have manufacturing capacity.

China is rife with CNC machining capacity. You might think that cheap labor has little impact on manufacturing price when heavy CNC is involved, but in non fully automated low volume (sub 10k qty) that isn't the case. Two mills running full time require at least one operators setting up and taking down parts full time even if the mill has a tool changer. Throw in multiple part setups and you've got even more time. Then there's deburring, inspection, and assembly. Cost of materials is nearly negligible in a product like a PTW. Aluminum is a cheap material and SystemA does not depend on any special alloys or cold forgings which require techniqes that are more refined. If you think CNC is special, you don't know that much about production manufacturing. CNC machining is a very early investment for most machining facilities globally. The cost of the equipment is falling very fast with the availability of low cost computers and control systems.

Hopefully SystemA has some patent on something like the sprung ball detent design in their cylinder. It not only holds the upper down, but it provides accurate registration with the tail end of the cyl to the lower. Hopefully they have some pending patents which would give them some protection for their hard work.