...and I do not want to jump into this too far, but I think the way to deal with this is to simply support the innovator you respect. Vote with $$$$.
I am not a patent attorney...I am, however, an attorney and I have dealt, a little, with other forms of intellectual property.
Simply put- to be patentable, a device need not be completely new. Some aspect of it must be new. The new use of existing technology is patentable. One example that comes to mind is my Grubee Stage II gearbox. (Google U.S. patent # 7,591,202). It is patented, but it uses a centrifugal clutch, reduction gears, etc. It is patentable because it used these long known items in a new and novel way. As an aside, given that this device received a patent, one can not assume that something like the EZM systems or the SBP shift kit are not patentable. They may very well be...but I, of course, can not be sure. For non-attorneys who are not patent examiners to assume that they are not...well, that's more than an little arrogant.
Also, a copyright is not a patent. A copyright protects written materal from plagarism, not devices.
A trademark or service mark are not a patent. A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol, image or a combination thereof that identifies a particular person or entity with a particular product. For instance- "Jello" is the trademark of a particular manufacturer's gelatin; "Tylenol" is the trademark of a particular drug maker's acetaminophen. A service mark is the same type of thing for a service rather than a product. Think of "Steamatic" carpet cleaner or "Goodwrench" auto service.
Once upon a time I saw elsewhere, a difficult to read photocopy of what looks like a trademark document of some kind. At least I think that is what it was. Some people who saw that document seemed to think it indicated a patent or protected a design of a device. I did not personally see anything that suggested that. A trademark simply protects a name- it has nothing to do which who came up with a product first and has nothing to do with a right to manufacture or sell a given product. It only preserves the use of a particular name. As to what I saw, once upon a time, there may be other documents I did not see, so I clearly do not have info to reach a conclusion about the existence of a patent. All I can say is that I saw nothing about a patent, just a trademark.
Think of it this way. If I saw that some other company had come up with a good way to sift flour, if I bought a copy of that design, I could apply for and get a trademark on the name "sift kit" if no one else had trademarked that name. However, that does not mean I have a patent, that I came up with the idea or that I have any right to control the manufacture of the product. All it means is that I can protect the use of the term "sift kit". Even with the trademark, if the original designer of the product I called a "sift kit" had a valid patent, I could be in legal peril.
Let me be clear- in the situation referred to in this topic, I have no inside info. I am simply trying to give some general legal background. Hope it explains some things.
BTW- my Dad is an inventor on 4 patents...for stuff I can barely comprehend.