I am glad Quark is making use of my Connector Design.
My initial design dates back to first documented email to Novak on Nov 1, 2005. Since then I posted the Idea on Tekin's web forum.
http://forum.teamtekin.com/phpbb3/vi...php?f=9&t=1766
I don't know how patent laws read, but if I was the original inventor of the idea I guess no one else could patent the idea since by law, they have to be the inventor and the idea was publicly disclosed.