Patent pending: increasingly, aquatics manufacturers are betting patent laws will protect their products and ideas from being hijacked.

From guarding against drowning to fighting pathogens, aquatics professionals are all about protection. But as the industry enters uncharted international waters, a new group is looking for protection: manufacturers. Increasingly, they're getting it through the tried and true patent.

Based on interviews and data, it seems that firms have flied for a virtual wave of patents over the past several years. Just ask the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. In 2005, it received a record 406,302 patent applications--double the number from 10 years ago.

Some say that growth reflects manufacturers' fear of product and intellectual property rights being stolen abroad and in the United States. Others say it's now easier and less expensive to obtain a patent than ever before. In the past, an inventor or company needed to spend a large sum of money to hire a patent attorney, fill out the paperwork and then wait for approval, said Mark Blank of Adolph Kiefer & Associates in Zion, Ill.

Today, it's as simple as filling out a form online--and more necessary than ever, according to many manufacturers.

"It's harder and harder to come up with something different, so you do want to protect it," explained Dianne Rothhammer, president/owner of Aquatics by Sprint in San Luis Obispo, Calif.

That's especially true given the rapidly expanding global market. Companies are trying to stop nations such as China, notorious for intellectual property theft, from copying their products, experts say. While an American patent does not apply outside the country, the same idea cannot be patented anywhere else in the world. Only the inventor can apply for a patent in other nations.

"Everything is being ...