Read about it HERE Mega Arms halts sale of monolithic uppers In a move that may signal the first of more possible announcements by companies manufacturing AR platforms, Mega Arms has decided to stop the manufacture and sale of their line of AR15 and MATEN MTS monolithic upper receivers. In an announcement to their dealers earlier this week, Mega explains one of their competitors has obtained a patent that grants them ownership of the monolithic rail platform. Mega states they do not want to put the resources into the expense of ongoing litigation and instead will work to bring a new platform to market that will exceed the performance of existing receivers The company became aware of possible US patent infringement issues earlier this spring and spent a couple months conferring with their legal counsel and trying to get in contact with the patent holder. I spoke with Jason Curns, manager of Mega Arms, who said they had explored other options before taking this step. “We reached out to the patent holder to discuss a licensing deal and we never heard back,” Curns said. GearScout has learned that the patent holder is Karl Lewis, of Lewis Machine and Tool, who shares the patent with co-inventors James Bargren, Jacob Schafer and Neal Hohl. The patent application was filed in 2003 and granted full, non-provisional, patent status in May, 2012. It remains to be seen how other manufacturers will deal with the surfacing of this patent. The patent could be like a bomb going off in the offices of Colt, POF, VLTOR and other manufacturers using an upper receiver with a continuous rail and integral handguard.