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Brewing patent battle spills into federal court
By adamg on Tue, 02/02/2016 - 10:17am
Keurig Green Mountain, which is actually based in Burlington, MA, is suing competitor Touch Coffee and Beverages for patent infringement - before Touch can sue Keurig for the same thing.
In a lawsuit filed this week in US District Court, Keurig charges Touch's products - which include coffee makers that can use Keurig K-Cups and a gizmo for "supercharging" Keurig brewers - violate Keurig patents. Keurig adds it got really steamed when it informed Touch of the violation and Touch responded by threatening to grind out its own patent lawsuit against Keurig.
Keurig wants a judge to order Touch to stop with the patent violations, pay Keurig royalties and damages and espressly declare that Keurig is not violating any Touch patients.
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Comments
We should all sue Keurig Green Mountain...
for what they've done to the planet...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRGiGbX9lIo
Love my K Cup! I believe the
Love my K Cup! I believe the owner or inventor left the company due to the waste of these things. I wonder why the cups can't be recycled. I'd rinse them out if I could throw them in the recycle bin if they were.
Until then, I'll continue to enjoy my Keurig and hope they find a better way.
The same can be said for so many other things. Walk into any school lunchroom, you couldn't count the plastic bags, etc that gets thrown in the trash.
In the meantime, I'm going to go brew myself another cup....(good stuff).
Cups
3rd parties make reusable K-Cups which are plastic and mesh pod you fill with ground coffee. You can use much better coffee this way and don't waste anything.
Except Keurig wasn't happy losing their overpriced k-cup sales to these $3 things so the new machines use a UV barcode reader (or something) to reject any K-Cup which hasn't paid their licensing fees. It's a scam.
As for waste, just because other things are wasteful isn't a justification to waste more. Traditional pour-over coffee was not-so-bad environmentally as the coffee and paper filter are highly biodegradable. But put the grounds in a plastic and metal cup and it will clutter landfills for centuries.
the new machines use a UV
Almost as bad as Apple and their "This cable or accessory is not certified" nonsense, with the result you can't charge your iPhone through a computer USB port (unless the computer is a Mac).
or any of a number of printer manufacturers
who put chips in their ink and toner cartridges to make sure you can only use their proprietary replacements.
> the result you can't charge
> the result you can't charge your iPhone through a computer USB port (unless the computer is a Mac).
What are you talking about? I charge my iPhone every day using a machine that runs linux.
Which iPhone?
I have a 5C that has a nasty habit of not allowing me to charge through a computer's USB port - even with an OEM certified cable.
And the USB port charges up my mp3 player perfectly fine, so I know it's not the USB port.
Yes, but I'll still use my
Yes, but I'll still use my Keurig. I'm not justifying it at all, but the poster needs to look around as it's far from just K Cups filling landfills.
Years ago it was diapers filling land fills, now it's K cups.
(I used Dydee Diaper service, wonder if they're still around).
Basically your argument is
Basically your argument is that other things pollute, so you want to keep polluting in a completely unreasonable manner. You said you weren't trying to justify it, then you go on to offer justifications for your own wasteful behavior.
We have found better ways.
We have found better ways than K cups and using plastic bags for lunch. They are called french presses and lunch boxes. Some people are just too lazy to use them.
I agree with the sandwich bag
I agree with the sandwich bag thing. Also disposable diapers - are they still a thing that people get upset over? I rarely bought them.
Really it's just common sense to do what you can and I wish they'd make that KCup plastic recyclable. There must be a reason why.
Not everyone likes french press coffee. I do but others in my house do not so it's not just a matter of laziness.
You can make a smaller pot of
You can make a smaller pot of coffee. You can use a chemex. There's alternatives. You are right, it's not just laziness, it's your own disregard for the pollution.
Water use
Sandwich bags use far less water.
Lazy?
Darling, we don't need your permission to use sandwich bags. Puhleeeze.
You have no idea what you are talking about. I have a family that doesn't generate more than a bag of garbage a week because we cook at home and use leftovers ... sometimes in sandwich bags! (gasp horror!)
Quart ziplock bags save phones and other small electronic items when biking in the rain, too, darling. But we are too "laaaaaaazy" to buy a second car and stop biking with zip locks!
I think that this must be your pedantic dance jam:
Beat the scam with the Freedom Clip!
http://www.rogersfamilyco.com/index.php/revolution-begun-starts-now-figh...
These days I don't think you can get them to send you a free clip any more, but you should get one in the box if you buy their trial size offering (or so I'm led to believe). It's worth trying their coffee too. Not only is the coffee itself good, but they use an unconventional mesh bag instead of the plastic cup at the bottom. This means their entire K-cup variant is something like 99% compostable.
Patricia, may I just say that
Patricia, may I just say that having read your past two comments regarding K-cups, you clearly have a lot of depth and you're very environmentally aware. I'm impressed. Enjoy your coffee girl!
I hate KCups
the coffee is expensive, weak, and watery.
They're really only useful in a communal environment like work, so people can brew coffee as-needed without feeling guilty about brewing only one cup. Otherwise, it's not that hard to measure out two heaping tablespoons of grounds and a cup and a half of water into a regular coffee maker.
Hate them too
You can get Sbux french roast, which is not watery nor weak, but still expensive!
I've worked in offices that use them, and they are ridiculously priced. Plus, they have overtaken pencils and post-its as the item most stolen from the company office supplies cabinet.
what is so difficult about making an espresso/small cup of coffee/etc?
That is a very self absorbed
That is a very self absorbed attitude.
Keurig does make reusable filters now
http://www.keurig.com/content/reusable-coffee-filter
People complain about the the
People complain about the the environmental impact of empty K-cups without weighing the environmental benefit. An empty K-cup contains 2-3 grams of plastic. A regular paper coffee filter weighs half a gram. Meanwhile the average person generates 2,000 grams of trash a day.
I wouldn't be surprised if K-cups are a net benefit for a environment.
both 2 and 3 grams are
both 2 and 3 grams are significantly more than half a gram. Additionally, a k-cup is made of plastic (petrochemical-derived) and is not compostable. Not sure how they could be a net benefit for the environment under that logic.
Mostly because K-cups save
Mostly because K-cups save time, and human labor is very expensive in terms of carbon. Increasing human productivity is good for the environment. Add to that the waste of brewing a whole pot of coffee when you only want one cup, and the overhead of traveling to Starbucks and buying coffee in a paper cup, which a person is more likely to do without a single-serve brewer at the office or at home.
The empty K-cup that goes into the trash is very visible, so it's easy to complain about, but time saving tools like K-cups reduce waste in less obvious ways.
Hey, I'm a huge fan but that
Hey, I'm a huge fan but that's a stretch.
You don't have to make a
You don't have to make a whole pot of coffee, you can just brew a smaller amount.
It takes much less than a
It takes much less than a minute to start brewing a small pot of coffee, and then you can go do something else while it's brewing, and it doesn't take very long to brew anyway. Your argument is not convincing at all.
Mr. Keurig, is that you?
So, if I grok your argument, it's a net environmental positive if each person who wants a cup of coffee creates 3 grams of plastic waste per mug, instead of having each pot of coffee (serving size: 2-10 mugs) generate .5 grams of biodegradable paper? Because from where I'm sitting, 3 is a larger number than .05. But I might not be considering the eigen-space that your argument postulates, in which numbers are somehow endowed with special properties because they represent only a small percentage of total daily waste, which comprises everything from food waste up to those long-chain polymers that will sit in a landfill for a thousand years.
Go home, Mr. Keurig. You're drunk.
(Yes I know their CEO is not named Mr. Keurig)
Coffee filters usually go to
Coffee filters usually go to landfill. Paper in a landfill anaerobically breaks down into methane, a greenhouse gas. Plastic in a landfill does not.
And french presses don't use
And french presses don't use any paper or plastic and can easily be used to brew 1 cup of coffee, or put into the fridge the night before to be made ahead of time.
They also ...
Require a fair amount of water to wash, generate coffee waste, and break fairly often and need to be replaced.
I like french press coffee, but you are being exceptionally selective about your anti-waste rants if you are targeting sandwich bags and k-cups.
These are probably the best systems for minimizing water and solid waste: https://us.jura.com/en/
My aunt uses one of the older, low tech, cup at a time Keurigs with refillable cup things. She just buys ground coffee and fills them up, runs a cup, and cleans them when she does dishes. Only coffee grounds.
that lawsuit...
...won't amount to a hill of beans. A reg'lah waste of court resources I say. Those drips should just perk up and move on.
I'm half & half on how this
I'm half & half on how this case will go. First thought was this case is frivolous on grande scale and there will be grounds for dismissal brewing as soon as the opening statements start.
To all the people who just LOVE LOVE LOVE their k-cup.....
I have been using this coffee filter (https://www.filtersfast.com/P-Mr-Coffee-GTF3-Coffee-Filter.asp) to make great pots of coffee for.....drum roll please.......8 years (and I'm not exaggerating). It cost an incredible $8.00!
If you care about the environment at all, please buy one.
It's not a k cup filter, so
It's not a k cup filter, so no I won't be buying one. I used my Braun, Mr. Coffee, etc.. drip coffee pots probably longer than you've been born and I have used these. Especially with cone type baskets sometimes you can't find filters. They are a good idea and I didn't know coffee filters didn't degrade. I always assumed they did.
Beyond waste...
...it just isn't very good.