Hi curious aardvark,
actually there are many more than 2 companies bringing color variants for fff to market. The thing is that not all of them use the same principle. What you're stating is similar to saying that FFF and SLS are the same, as they are all 3dprinting...
And patents don't work the way you propose, it's not about who gets it first, only one person or company can get a patent on a specifically technology or idea. If 2 patents run in parallel with the same idea, priority is for the one that FILED first, not for who "gets" it first...and no one will get it if it was not a novell idea/development.
Best