DLitwin made a post saying that there were only 2 types of 2x2 mechanisms: Eastsheen and Rubik's. This reminded me of an unusual 2x2 that I got at the Toronto Open Winter 2009 cubing competition. It is quite large and although the mechanism does resemble an Eastsheen (somewhat) I don't think that it's quite the same (although I have never really seen an Eastsheen 2x2's internals I have a general idea of how it works). As usual my photos won't upload so here's the album on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2 ... 0fa20ce299

As you can see the core is a V-cube type core. I think this might even be a V-Mech KO 2x2 but I don't really know. To describe the mech, it's a 6-armed spider with rounded core pieces. The corners have a rounded triangular piece that slots into the core. Does anyone know anything about this particular cube?

There are quite some similarities to the V-cube mechanism, but no, this puzzle does probably not infringe the V-Cube patent. I found a patent that seems to describe this puzzle, dated 1980: http://www.google.com/patents?id=dSwxAA ... &q&f=false

In fact, I doubt that the V-2 patent would hold up in court. The patent I cited bears some similarity to the V-2 and might be considered prior art.
Also, Eastsheen's patent for their 2x2x2 might be prior art. The V-2 is essentially an ES 2x2x2 with the straight bits curved, and even the V-cube patent itself argues that this curvature may not be needed.

this is quite similar to a k-ball mechanism