K cup patent when is it up

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Rogers Family Co. The One Cup uses a ring made from plant-based materials and an inner bag made from wood pulp, together with a mesh filter made from food-grade polyester. Only the mesh filter is not biodegradable. We manufacture the private label for Safeway. One of the enduring criticisms of the K-Cup pack has been that it ends up in landfills — a problem that Green Mountain Coffee is still trying to solve. Whole Foods Market, which launched a pod under its private Everyday Value brand in July, did not even consider Green Mountain Coffee as a supplier, said Mark Dickerson, a buyer for the grocery chain.

Dickerson declined to say who makes Whole Foods' pods but did say the famously green company had to grapple with the fact that its consumers "tend to not like additional packaging. If it detects the ring of black symbols on the standard pod, it brews a smaller cup. When Keurig first announced its intention to design a lockout mechanism earlier this year, two companies that make unlicensed pods sued it for anticompetitive practices.

The CEO of Treehouse Foods , one of the third-party pod makers, has promised to reverse engineer the brewer and design compatible pods within "months.

Keurig recently signed a deal with Coca-Cola to make a pod-based brewer for cold carbonated beverages, and another deal with Campbell's to make soup. In a Credit Suisse report for J. Smucker this month, it said that management chose to continue its licensing agreement with Keurig because it gave them access to a low-cost K-Cup manufacturer — and because it gave them a "peek under the tent" for the upcoming closed 2. Would-be competitors trying to capitalize on the apparently insatiable thirst for instant caffeinated beverages and possibly soup may continue to find it easier to partner with Keurig instead.

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