It's not that they don't care. It's that the patents they held on beveled edge discs expired in 2003. Until that happened, every single golf disc produced by any company put $$ in Innova's coffers via patent licensing fees. There's a reason that the number of disc manufacturers has skyrocketed only in the last ten years or so...the licensing shackles have come off. They're not about to patent every single modification to the beveled edge disc they ever come out with, and at this point I don't think doing so would even be successful (or profitable).
Same goes for targets. DGA had the market cornered on baskets for years because they held the patents (and were aggressive about putting down competitors, even targets of the homemade variety). Their patents expired and suddenly everyone was in the basket market and there wasn't much they could do to stop it.
To the thread topic, if one has a specialized technique or method or product that they don't want copied, it behooves them to secure patents, trademarks, copyrights, etc to protect themselves. Even just starting that process gives them some legal claim of "first" if copycats comes along. Without seeking that legal protection, there's not a whole lot you can do if the copycats do start coming out of the woodwork.
