Well, I believe Tom Brown actually stole the design almost curve for curve from Dave Beck, and Tops didn't seem too worried. Roger Linger, Mark Terrell, Tops, and Red Scorpion 6 have all made variations of this design. I happen to think Dan Koster's is the most origianal, but noone owns a design. If they did, noone would be able to make Bowies, right, or Khukuris, or camps?

That aside, I think a top quality WSK has a niche, despite the cost to market. Dan's WSKs sold for around $200, and he's a one man show. Besides, he sold them in one afternoon on bladeforums.com. I would think that if a company would jump on this they could put out great quality ones for at least that, and sell every last one of them. If like minded/quality companies can sell out of their 9-10 inch blades for $250-$400, it proves that price doesn't trump quality. People want quality. And this particular knife has a whole niche crowd that wants something better than what Tops and Red Scorpion 6 has cranked out. There are already plenty of companies that crank out lost cost/quality stuff, and they've got plenty of those models lying around for sale. Which proves that low cost/quality isn't neccessarily what everyone is shopping for.