For "one off's" I have adapted to using that iron on laser printer technique. Although I have much more sophisticated equipment, and the printer method is a little tricky, it's so much faster for single or prototype one or two sided boards. You can get surprising resolution too.
You know, just about anyone can print at least prototype quality boards now days. No specialized sourcing needed for each supply you used like when I first started. Now days places like Amazon or Ebay sell just about anything needed. Although you can buy low cost CNC drilling machines, for less than 100 holes, and with surface mount technology that's more than you'll ever use, you can buy a Dremel "drill press" attachment, and a Dremel tool. Carbide drill bits that fit a Dremel (1/8") are cheap and all you need them for is mostly for via's, some leaded passives, board external wiring, sockets, terminals and mounting.
I printed my first board in the hot attic of my house (in the desert west) when very young, about the time of the Apollo missions. Back then it was "tape on" resist traces layed very carefully on each board, then etch. Also knew Morse code and had built several "tube" radio transmitters in those days. Now days our cell phone has more computing power than the entire Apollo mission used. They were much much smarter programmers though. They had to be to accomplish so much with so little. I think NASA had trained monkeys in those days that were smarter than most of today's programmers.
Also as for getting IP stolen, you can't even get a patent now days safely. It'l be stolen (from the patent office), in production, and on the bootleg market before you even get the patent approved. Forget about all of the rigged courts too. If you catch one of the thieves your better off with the Smith and Wesson, or Winchester legal approach.