I am an idiot so I can not explain this in detail, however, as I understand it(as told from the folks at emm labs) it all boils down to mathmatics. They've solved a "problem" mathmatically and have marketed it well, I think it is highly unlikely they are not protected with patents- Emm labs is directly linked with Sony.
I imagine(and this is strictly my mind running freely, I have no information to prove or disprove this theory) that most don't understand what's going on even when they see it. If you look into it most modifiers will not touch anything emm labs because they just don't have a good understanding of what's happening- the only exception seems to be mods to the phillips but they are not going near emm labs mods, simply power supply improvements which are a known weak link in the phillips players.
I imagine(and this is strictly my mind running freely, I have no information to prove or disprove this theory) that most don't understand what's going on even when they see it. If you look into it most modifiers will not touch anything emm labs because they just don't have a good understanding of what's happening- the only exception seems to be mods to the phillips but they are not going near emm labs mods, simply power supply improvements which are a known weak link in the phillips players.