
Nestlé Loses Bid to Prevent Sales of Rival Coffee Capsules - DanBC
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/17/business/nestle-loses-bid-to-prevent-sales-of-rival-coffee-capsules.html
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adriand
I can't stand these coffee capsules. The amount of waste they generate is
absurd for a process which should really only produce negligible compostable
waste (coffee grounds and perhaps coffee filters). Plus, I doubt the plastic
capsules are recyclable, since they permanently contain the grounds once used
(at least, the Tassimo brand that I've seen in action does this).

This is an "innovation" that saves little time (making a cup of coffee is not
a time-consuming process), is substantially more expensive than the process it
replaces, and generates an inordinate amount of waste.

~~~
shiven
_This is an "innovation" that saves little time (making a cup of coffee is not
a time-consuming process), is substantially more expensive than the process it
replaces, and generates an inordinate amount of waste._

I am sorry, but based on my personal experience, you completely lose on the
time argument. It is way easier to to get _espresso_ style coffee this way
than any other way I am aware of. Just turn the Nespresso machine on, pop in
the capsule, place your coffee mug at the dispenser, press the dispense button
and walk away. Within seconds you have a _very decent_ cup of espresso, with
absolutely no messy after-cleaning of grinder/machine/utensils.

In this once instance, I love the technology, it is way cheaper than barista
coffee, way quicker and way less messy than making it on my own.

And oh, you can pry my Nespresso away from my cold dead hands, not before. ;-)

Edit: The only item on my wish list with Nespresso is to use my choice of
coffees, which may now become possible with Nestle losing this lawsuit. I'd
love to be able to brew the "Honey badger" or "Sugar glider" from
Intelligentsia coffee on my Nespresso! Yum!!!

~~~
buro9
My Delonghi Perfecta bean-to-cup machine will disagree with the argument that
Nespresso is faster.

I can skip the "pop in the capsule" step for a weekly "pour some beans in the
top".

Bean-to-cup machines are fairly common, but for those who wish to take their
time then there are more time-consuming ways (syphon coffee anyone?).

~~~
shiven
Except that the _Delonghi Perfecta_ is three times the price of a Nespresso
:-P

~~~
buro9
Yeah, I calculated that when I purchased it.

The coffee is a third cheaper and that's for Square Mile or Monmouth beans
(about as expensive as you can get ignoring stuff involving Civets).

It's the difference between purchasing a more expensive laser printer and
having reduced printing costs, or purchasing an ink jet and having higher
printing costs.

We make 2-4 double-espressos per day. It's worth paying for the better machine
to make the savings each day. Given that I've had the machine for more than 4
years it's already saved me a substantial amount of money.

Each double-espresso (14g of coffee) costs me around 35p, whereas a Nespresso
(6g of coffee) costs around 52p, and the local coffee shop charges around
£1.20 (14g of coffee).

So not only is it cheaper, but there's a full double-shot in mine and less
than a single shot in yours. Of course, if I had a single espresso to make it
comparable then the price of Nespresso looks even worse.

~~~
robin_reala
God, Square Mile coffee is good. Why we don’t have that at work instead of a
Nespresso I don’t know…

~~~
buro9
For an office <http://www.hasbean.co.uk/> makes far more sense.

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K2h
Next thing you know the coffee capsule will have a chip in it like ink
cartridges.... a true innovation, and then we'll have coffee bypass systems
with tubes all over the place for continuous coffee system. Maybe Nestle
should contact HP inkjet division for some ideas on how to avoid aftermarket
competition.

edit - sorry, I should have been clear, this is total sarcasm. I despise the
'selling the product at a loss and make the profit on the disposables' model.

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DanBC
Compare with this story from April where Nestlé won.
([http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/19/nestle-
nespresso-i...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/19/nestle-nespresso-
idUSL6E8FJE0F20120419))

See also razors with disposable heads; printers and carts; etc.

There is continuing litigation about this patent across Europe; there's also a
trademark problem being litigated in Switzerland. Nestlé is likely to appeal
the German decision.

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nicholassmith
Hurrah for a sensible patent suit outcome. But less hurrah as there'll be more
terrible coffee capsules, which whilst they're a massive time saving
convenience I've always found quite bland, I'm planning on shifting from a
french press to an Aeropress soon just to try save a bit more time, but I've
always found you get slightly more taste than the capsules.

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pimentel
This kind of patent for the machine (which being a hardware-machinery patent,
I can agree with), would cover all other existent coffee-pod machines, if it
worked as it works on the software patents world. What would be patented would
be all possible and unimplemented means of getting a coffee from a capsule,
with a mobile or desktop coffee machine.

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ErikHuisman
In 2004 Douwe Egberts "Master Blenders" lost the exact same case for their
Senseo Pad system. So they knew how to win this case.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senseo#Patent_matters>

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zerostar07
I would vouch for opencoffeemachine.org and it's related APIs. We have to stop
this corporate pissing contest

