Not to worry, I didn't take any offence by your comments. I was just trying to add what I knew about the situation. I work with a number of other manufacturers as well. One of them is Bishline Banjos, and those guys are some of the nicest guys I have ever met in the music business. I'm not passing judgement on anyone else by saying that, I'm just saying that these guys are super people.
As far as the copy situation, as I said, not sure what is going on there one way or the other, so my comments on that subject are pretty uninformed. I just know that a lot of guitars look like a lot of other guitars. I use to write for Harmony-Central back in the day (when they actually had writers) and I remember PRSH showing me the Single Cut for the first time. The first thing that flashed through my mind was, "Oh, PRS made a Les Paul copy." But, according to the courts, it's not a copy. If I got my shorts in a bunch everytime someone copied one of my inlay designs, I'd be pissed all the time. Let's not forget about all the Strat and Tele makers like Anderson, Suhr, Melicon, etc, etc, etc. Great makers, but a definately ripped off design without question. I'm not familar with Yavcon (do you have a web-site I could check out, I'd really be interested in seeing Ken's work), but if he is making a great guitar he really doesn't have anything to worry about.