| Type | Public |
|---|---|
| Industry | lock manufacturer |
| Founded | 1925 |
| Headquarters | Indianapolis,IN, USA |
| Key people | Frank E Best, Founder, deceased |
| Parent | Stanley Black & Decker |
| Website | www.bestaccess.com |
Best Lock Corporation is the former name of a publicly traded door hardware and lock manufacturer. Originally founded in 1925 as Best Universal Lock Company by Frank Ellison Best, the privately held company relocated from Seattle, Washington to Indianapolis, Indiana in 1938, where operations expanded and evolved. Currently, product offerings are now marketed under the Best Access brand, which is one of several trademarked corporate divisions for Stanley Security Solutions.
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In addition to its associated commercial and architectural primary hardware components - such as locksets, padlocks, specialty locks and accessories[1] - Best Access is primarily known for its "small format" interchangeable cores, which were originally patented in 1921, but became popular under Frank Best's direction in the middle nineteen sixties as a replacement for the less popular removable core keying configuration that he had previously developed in 1919.
Best Access products are sold primarily and directly to corporate and institutional end users without locksmith and wholesaler access to competitive distribution. Its products are typically marketed toward and installed into moderately sized or larger master key systems.
From the several keyways that Best markets, one product line, known as their Premium Key System, features a series of key sections of more substantial girth relative to most common industry types. Best held patents on the overall shape of these keys until Ilco-Unican Corporation (now Kaba-Ilco) ascertained that the patents were invalid and produced its own compatible blanks, which were first distributed with great interest at a 1993 ALOA convention.
By 1995, amidst a time of internal Best family ownership upheaval and changeover[2], Frank Best's original company had been deliberately split into three thinly traded components featuring a primary public division established as Best Lock Corporation. On November 25, 2002, all holdings of Russell Best, who had acquired full control of the three businesses in 1998, were purchased by Stanley Black & Decker. The company subsequently evolved, again, into Stanley Security Solutions dba Best Access Systems, as it is currently known.
In 2008, family members of those that Russell Best had ousted from the original company began a new enterprise - Marshall Best Security - in the same Indianapolis community and producing the same types of interchangeable cores and related commercial hardware.
Best Universal Lock unsuccessfully sued Falcon lock claiming patent and trademark infringements on its nineteen-sixties core redesign. The focus of the suit was primarily on the use of Best cores in housings by Falcon or by any other manufacturer, which Best Universal Lock contended was illegal; however, since housings were not specifically identified in any patent documentation, the courts decided that there could be no infringement. Subsequently, Falcon was able to continue to produce housings and develop its own very similar core line to compete with Best Universal Lock.[3]
Best unsuccessfully sued Ilco claiming patents infringements over their key blade design and utility patents. Ilco counterclaimed that the patents were not valid. In August 1996, court decided that both patents were invalid on basis that its utility patent was already covered in a prior art and that keyway shape was not an ornamental concern for the users.[4]
Interchangeable core
Original Best key blanks were factory incised with lettering "IT IS UNLAWFUL TO DUPLICATE THIS KEY" on one side and featured the name "BEST" surrounded by stars on the other. Current key blanks are now incised with "DUPLICATION PROHIBITED" opposite a modernized logo.
PEAKS
utilizing KABA Peaks patented technology.
CorMAX / MX8
This is its newest key system with a patented side pin technology (patent number 5,615,566, which expires in 2027). This key system is available in the M Series that is backward compatible with original interchangeable core locks as well as the X series that is not.