Benchmade is not a 100% American company. They pulled that illusion over your head by rebranding their China brands as HK or Harley Davidson etc etc. Sorry, but your favorite brand is also paying Chinese people to make knives
Probably more than Spyderco in volume. It's founder is Filipino who started his knife career making Filipino knives. It's not exactly an all American apple pie story. Nothing wrong with that but dont frame your brand like it has this aura of American-ness lmao. I brought up MAP pricing because you got on your soap box about competition being a good thing. Your brand doesnt even allow knives to be sold competitively in the open market.
Yes the hole isnt a big deal to you or Benchmade, that much is obvious. It doesnt mean that it isn't an identifying attribute to Spyderco for others and if the roles were reversd and BM had something protected and others thought werent a big deal, Im sure you would have your Oregon juices flowing up in arms for it.
Yes you shouldnt care if the Axis lock gets used by other companies... For one, it supports your argument here and two the patent will expire next year anyway so disagreeing wont win you anything anyway.
Chris Reeve allows anyone to use the term integral lock. For one, any patent he had on it would have expired anyway. BM calling it monolock which may even be trademarked like its their innovation is the problem here. Of course, thats not a problem to you since its BM all day.