My brother works in the HiTech Fixture testing industry. He relayed a story about a line the of product they had developed & produced for some time, 15-yrs (?) and the tech was fairly well know by that time. Either a competitor or China patented specifics and effectively killed that line for them. At that point, the patent was used only for competitive purposes, not for protection of intellectual property newly developed, but they put in the work to request it. They learned a lesson and cover their development better now.