Funny how if you call up company X and ask which product is better they will tell you that the product made by company X is better.

He fed you a bunch of BS, thats what he gets paid to do. As mentioned the snorkel analogy means nothing, and telling you they should have pattented their short ram is complete BS as well. There is no way they could patent an aluminum tube with a filter on it, its been done every possible way hundreds of times by hundreds of people, calling it a "short ram" doesn't make it any different.