Jim McLane – Drawer Lock System
This is is Jim McLane isthe inventor of The Drawer Lock System, which is a portable lock for cabinet doors and drawers. The need for this lock was inspired during a family dinner four years ago. His two sons are Deputy Sheriffs here in Florida and every family dinner is usually like an episode of Cops on TV. His oldest son was in the narcotics division and made the statement that 80% of the drug addiction problem that their country faces begins at home by people leaving their prescription drugs unprotected. Jim thought to himself “this is pretty stupid! It is too much trouble to lock things up and keep track of a small cabinet lock key that can be found by others anyway.”
Jim had recently semi-retired from being a Building Contractor and had good knowledge of cabinetry construction. So working in his garage with components from the door lock isle of Home Depot the 1st prototype of the Drawer Lock System was created, (Prototype #1 & #2). He was referred to a friend of a friend who professed to be a marketing agent, whom he hired. At this point they applied for a provisional patent through Legal Zoom. Next a patent attorney was hired and they proceeded with difficult task of getting a patent in this country. The patent was issued September 16th, 2014, PATT #8833118 (http://www.google.ch/patents/US8833118) . The product was well received by every company but very hard to get through the gatekeepers and to connect with the right people. Jim got a list of vendors at the national hardware show and started to make calls and send emails. Finally, he found a small company in Chicago to license the product. “They have done a good job in taking my prototype and taking it to the next level” says Jim, “however, after about two years it was evident they were not the right company to move the product; their overseas suppliers could not produce a quality product on time due to the low volume they were ordering.”
Jim feltl that there were two markets for this product. The first being your common hardware stores such as – Home Depot, Lowes, Ace Hardware, etc… for what he call the standard unit. The second, being the Commercial custom unit: for doctor’s offices, nursing homes, hotels, hospitals, military base housing and other potential opportunities. As you can see He is very passionate about the product so this first portion of information is strictly so that the reader understands how it works. Any means of activation can control the locking mechanism such as a keypad, smart key, card reader,voice proximity chip, fingerprint and any other suggested technology.
First Market the Standard Bracket Unit (Key Pad) for residential, kitchen, bath, bedroom and utility. Cabinets were made for years with many standard dimensions up until the late 1980’s when the industry started evolving more to European design and much more custom cabinetry. So Jim believes our market for the standard unit is primarily residential and doctor’s offices/ labs built before 1980 the bracket will fit about 80% or more of these cabinets. Additionally, it is highly likely that the drawer lock system will fit many present day cabinetry designs. The bracket can also be attached by thumb screw which would make it fit all.
The unit requires a cabinet frame for the bolt to lock behind and the door or drawer closes against the frame of the cabinet. For our purpose we will call this a standard cabinet and it is the way most cabinetry was made in the country for residential and light commercial (doctor’s offices, nursing homes, etc…). Then in the late 1980’s came European style cabinetry design and many others that have no other cabinet frame and some thicker or thinner doors and drawers. However, the drawer lock system will work on some present day cabinetry.
The next style of cabinet the drawer lock will work on is flush style cabinets. These have a frame but the door or drawer is flush to frame and inside the frame opening. This will then require a changeable latch to reach the frame. The bracket can also be secured on a cabinet with a thumbscrew rather than a spring tension – this would still allow the “NO TOOLS NEEDED” pitch and would improve the level of security. In addition it will also allow the drawer lock to fit cabinet doors and drawers of various thicknesses.
There are many commercial users that would require possibly a special bracket made to insure a good fit. These users would also pay more and require a salesman to get design information from user.
These users might be hotels (using a slide cart to open with room key). We had interest from Omni Hotels. I will try and find contact information for this. Hospitals, nursing homes and doctors’ offices using proximity chip. The military has big drug problems on base housing (might need special bracket).
In May 2011 the Drawer Lock was accepted for review by Schlage, which I have been told is very rare to be accepted.