VirTra Inc (VTSI)

[jmodified]

They have patents pending for threat fire and for their system as a whole. The applications appear to be well written as patent applications go, and novel enough under current standards. I only have experience with software patents, but I would say these will most likely be granted unless someone notifies the patent office of prior art (and even if they do, Virtra will claim that what they are doing is different, even if it's really not much different, and prevail unless the objector has deep pockets). The patent office rarely finds prior art on their own. Any academic projects or academic publications showing prior art usually go unnoticed, even if you can find it easily with a Google search and even if the work is well known in the field.

You can read the applications yourself: http://appft1.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html

The next question is whether these patents, if granted, will be useful as offense (preventing competition or allowing income through licensing) or only defense (not being sued by the competition). Offensive use is a bit iffy, since competitors can probably work around the specifics, but they would provide some minor impediment to competition at least.