I hate to see it so easy for people to pick apart other peoples hard work, and it gets upheld by courts. Absolutely reverse engineering will spin off fresh ideas for new and better things. So will just taking a look at something if your a good engineering designer. Personally, I feel for the most part things are reverse engineered for the simple fact to get knocked off, copied and insignificantly changed just ever so slightly so that they can skate by the law and make profits on other peoples good ideas. Free enterprise? I suppose it is. Maybe there's a lot of complainers out there but there's a LOT more good products being made by people and factories having no morels or conscience. Is standing behind the law, really all that high and mighty?