Following patent expiration, GANAAN hopes to harness improved drum carrier

Three years after applying in 2004, Randall May International Inc. was granted worldwide patents for a “Percussion Instrument Carrier Assembly.” Twenty years on, the major patents have expired, opening the drum harness concept to changes and new commercial products.

Garth Newlands’ GANAAN company is hoping to make and launch the “ErgoMount Drum Harness,” provided about CAD$8,500 can be raised through a Crowdfunding campaign.

Newlands said the new product reshapes the tubes made from carbon fibre 3k Twill or Kevlar Weave, “making the harness both stronger and lighter at the same time. The use of advanced materials allows us to offer a variety of colour options, adding to a drummer’s personal style or to a pipe band’s streamlined appearance,” in many stock and custom colours.

He added that the ErgoMount Drum Harness’s “belly plate, shoulder bars and mounting adapters have all been redesigned,” promising improved fit with fewer parts, going from 70 parts to 50, thus reducing the overall weight and allowing for adjusting the product “faster and easier . . . without the use of tools. The eight main points of adjustment can be changed using thumb cam levers.”

The existing “Randall May JKP Snare Harness” retails for about $750. GANAAN plans to sell the ErgoMount Drum Harness for $550.

Crowdfunding campaigns are usually run by fledgling companies, but Newlands said, “GANAAN is still a young company in the piping and drumming world and doesn’t have the decades of capital that other companies do. With that, we have to be creative in how we get new products to market. Who better to bring a new product to market than the audience who will be using it?”

If the product comes to fruition, contributors to the Crowdfunding campaign will receive various returns on their investment, ranging from the product itself to company-branded accessories. But stressed that “every person, whether a piper, drummer or enthusiast who contributes at the different sponsorship levels, will be receiving something in return and have the knowledge that it was their contribution that helped shape the future of drumming.”

The complicated and expensive world of patents is generally prohibitive to the piping and drumming world. Because “international” patents must be paid to multiple countries, maintenance costs can run to tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars annually, so unpatented, innovative new products are often open to copying and modification.

Geoff Ross of Australia, the inventor of the moisture control system for the Highland pipes, and Mark Wygent of Pennsylvania, who created the first synthetic drone reeds, are just a few examples of creators who left their innovations to the open market due to the difficulties imposed on their one-person businesses.

Most patents expire after 10 to 25 years after they are granted, depending on the country. The United States is 15 years; Canada and the UK are 20 years.

Following the 2021 expiration of the US patent for the Randall May Percussion Instrument Carrier Assembly, drum companies in the United States began developing and selling their own harnesses based on the original concept. Randall May International also granted “white label” licenses of its products to various dealers worldwide, including JKP