Bosch REAX used compressed air cylinders to drop the blade without damaging it. They got sued into oblivion by SawStop because SawStop was somehow granted a patent on the idea of stopping a blade quickly. As a side fact, the Bosch sensor electronics weren't done properly and could sometimes be affected by BlueTooth.

The whole "releasing our patent" is simply SawStop's way of trying to lock out the competition. All their competitors (including Bosch) have said that it will take several years before they could develop an alternative product leaving them in violation.

Finally, the regulation SawStop is trying to force doesn't even solve the injury problems for a few reasons.

The biggest is that CPSC does NOT affect commercial saws. As it turns out, hobbyists don't have as many injuries as you might think because they don't use their saws all the time and they have a very healthy respect for them (there are exceptions of course). Most serious injuries happen because the guy at the commercial shop has become too complacent and made a mistake after a long day at work. This ruling does nothing to change that situation.

You also can't fix stupid. If blade guards and riving knives are left on saws, the chances of injury are incredibly low, but people choose to remove one or both of these. They'll also turn off the safety features and do something they shouldn't. SawStop safety is over-represented because the people who spend the extra money for one are already predisposed to take safety seriously.

This leads to the price issue. Table saw prices will go up from $220 up to a minimum of $600 or more. This increases the risk of someone not having that much money and then turning their circular saw upside down making an incredibly dangerous table saw without a blade guard, riving knife, or even a parallel fence massively increasing the baseline risk for injury.

I love the idea of SawStop and I think it's an amazing safety device, but after reading the arguments on all sides, I think we should leave the current saws situation alone and instead simply require each saw manufacturer to offer at least one AIM model in their product lineup by 2032 or so (while maybe getting the courts to fix up the colossal screwups they made with the SawStop patents). This will give them time to develop alternatives and maybe drive down prices over time until it finally (hopefully) makes economic sense to only sell AIM devices.