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If you had to sign a NDA then their patent process has not been approved. If not then why would you have to sign any NDA. That means a provisional application, with a yet to ne submitted full filing, that may be rejected outright if it is determined to consist of prior art that has been combined in such a way to be "obvious to someone educated in the art".
My guess would be the provisional has been filed but the complete application is yet to be filed (possibly on the date 9/23/12). My other guess would be it may never see the light of day as a commercial enterprise (the vast majority don't). It is amusing that the major manufacturers still think that the normal protection time of just over 17 years is not significant. Maybe they work on a different mental schedule than the rest of us.
Probably would just have been better to wait until the date when you can reveal the new "miracle" hybrid Ben, but It does seem like we have been down this road a few million times. The clock is ticking on mine at just over 2 years now, so I would be very skeptical of anyone falling over themselves to use a particular design, if it even passes the novelty test, which becomes more difficult every year, especially when you think globally.
regards
Mech
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