Starting in September 2013, Ruger began filing a flurry of patent applications for a pair of semi-automatic shotgun designs. Designers included Chief Design Engineer Dwight Potter, Chief Engineer Scott Warburton, Chief Engineer Bruce Rozum, Product Design Engineer Jason Pittman, Manufacturing Engineer Benjamin G. Hawkins, and Michael R. Tilton.
Potter was hired from Browning, Rozum was ex-Marlin, and Warburton was a former Savage engineer. As far as I can determine, all three are still with Ruger. I know that Pittman has since bounced from Ruger to Desert Tech, then to Taurus, and now, Palmetto State Armory. Surely, Ruger’s engineering department can survive the departure of one designer.
The following are the patents related to the conventional semi-auto shotgun design.
https://patents.google.com/patent/US9400148B2
https://patents.google.com/patent/US9464859B2
https://patents.google.com/patent/US9476660B2
https://patents.google.com/patent/US9803940B2
https://patents.google.com/patent/US10309736B2
Potter also toyed with the idea of a top-loading semi-auto shotgun.
Scattered Shots 