Patent
Even if you did invent a new plug and hired a patent attorney to research your design, so as to prove that it was unique and could be considered for a patent. Your rights to that design would only belong to you for twenty years. After 20 years it belongs to the public domain and anyone can freely market the concept.
I don't believe that anyone has a design today that is patentable.
If the first guy who ever thru-wired a cylindrical piece of wood, painted like a baitfish and attached hooks to it had filed for a patent, it would have expired long ago.
Although I am not a lawyer, I did at one time invent something that I felt was unique and valuable, and paid a lawyer $1500 to do a patent search, which is the first step towards applying for a patent. I learned enough from that experience to say that anyone can legally copy anyone elses plugs and sell them.
No that is not to say that its ethical or the gentlemanly thing to do, but aside from trademarks which is a different matter, there is no legal protection against copycatting.
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