While I can't talk about specifics, I can tell you that as a small company you don't want to get involved with a patent dispute. We didn't own the mold for our Flap Jack, we rented it from another company. The owner of that mold actually told me he had a patent on the bait that was issued before Netbait got theirs. I took him for his word and boy was that a mistake. Being new to patent issues, I didn't understand at the time what was all involved.......I do now. Jim said it very well. Don't just do a Google search, you need to hire a patent attorney if you want to play in this game. Yes, that is expensive but not even close to what it could/will cost you.
In the long run, it has made us a better company. We now have our own injection machine (just arrived 2 weeks ago!) and we have 4 new baits coming out in the next couple of weeks.