I had heard of the Bear & Son but was not aware of the Gerber side of things. I guess if one thinks this through, Leatherman did create something rather unique back in 1983. There are definitely older multi-tools...but the plier bases ones are rare. After the success of the PST, there came a plethora of plier based multi-tools. Mind you, everyone did their thing as to make it different enough so that Leatherman couldn't sue them...probably why the 90s and early 2000s to me, I consider the golden age of multi-tool design variations. A lot of folks wanted that piece of the pie, and everyone came out with many designs...the Gerber sliding pliers being one of the more successful ones out there.