Insert Door Technology History

Our cats had free roam of our home and occupied the room dedicated to be the nursery for our children for four years prior to the arrival of our first child. We knew this would be problematic with the cats’ natural curiosity and always wanting to go back into “their room”. My wife, Michaele, introduced the idea of a nursery screen door in July 2000 as a solution to our problem. Her thought was to use something like a “storm door” type of screen door. I liked the screen door idea, but didn’t like the idea of using a storm door. An extensive market search found no suitable substitution product to install.

This led to the development of the idea to modify a standard hollow core interior door to have a screen. In August 2000, Prototype #1 was invented, built and installed on our nursery. The result was an aesthetically pleasing screen door which fit into the door frame of the original door without frame or hinge modifications. The invention worked extremely well except it had one design flaw. The problem – the screen was not removable and would be a problematic repair if damaged. We consequently had an incident where the screen became damaged.

In late 2001, Michaele responded to an inquiry from an individual about keeping cats out of their nursery on the Baby Bargains website – my wife posted that we put a screen door on our nursery. Note that the details of our design concept were not disclosed – it has never been made public (until the patent applications). Her screen door idea was published in an associated book.

Our first daughter , Kyra, became accustomed to having the screen door, so her move to her new room (in preparation for our second child) facilitated the need for a second screen door. In August 2002, Prototype #2 was invented(removable screen design), built and installed onto Kyra’s new room in September 2002. It is more elegant and aesthetically pleasing than the previous door. Both screen doors are still in use today after 11 and 9 years of service, respectively.

Visitors of all types have expressed significant positive feedback over the years and I have had a number of inquires on where to buy it and requests for me to build them. Market research found that because of lack of an alternative, standard “storm type” screen doors for baby nurseries had been used, yet admittedly not preferred. In fact, many websites suggest the installation of a screen door on nurseries for homes having pets. A major U.S. home improvement retail store company representative even made the same suggestion for all home baby nurseries on an episode of the American Baby Show (video clip is available upon request).

In March 2009, we decided to pursue a patent when the patent search/patentability opinion demonstrated the invention to be patent eligible. Market research had found nothing remotely similar had been invented nor made publically available.

In May 2009 (finalized in October), the “tool-less” operation and hidden fastener upgrade was invented and prototypes #3, #4 & #5 were built. The original patent application was filed in June 2009 with a CIP filed in April 2010 and the PCT application following in May . The “Sound and Secure” trademark was filed in June 2009 and registered on 3/30/2010 (No. 3769555). Prototypes #6, #7 and #8 were completed in 2011 providing a complete representation of the Inset Door Technology™ portfolio. A market reseach analysis was completed for the Sound and Secure® Home Nursery Room Door in September 2011 by the Parenting Group using their MomConnection® network that demonstrated its market potenital to be 2.8 million doors per year. In late 2012, the "conversion kit" version of the technology was developed with the application for its patenting filed in early 2013.