US 2,010,288,131 · Filed 2009-05-13

The Coffee Pod That Fixes Itself With Mineral Magic

Imagine a coffee pod that's smarter than regular ones. This invention adds chalk-like calcium carbonate to the cup, lid, or filter to make it easier to poke holes through AND to soak up the gas that coffee gives off as it sits. Less gas means fewer broken pods before they even reach your machine.

Curated and verified by the IsItPatented Editorial team

The plain-English version

What it protects

The claim covers a sealed beverage cartridge—like a single-serve coffee pod—where calcium carbonate mineral is built into at least one of three parts: the cup, the lid, or the filter inside. What's protected is the specific combination of using that mineral to serve two functions at once: making the cartridge easier to pierce with a needle or pin, AND absorbing carbon dioxide gas released by the coffee grounds so the pod doesn't burst or degrade during storage.

Why it matters

Single-serve beverage pods are a huge business, and defects during manufacturing and storage cost companies money. By embedding calcium carbonate into the cartridge material itself, this patent solves two problems at once without adding extra parts or steps. It makes the manufacturing process cheaper and more reliable while reducing waste from damaged cartridges that never make it to store shelves.

Real-world use

Every time you drop a K-Cup or similar pod into a brewer and the machine pierces the top, the ease of that puncture and the cartridge's ability to survive weeks in a warehouse shelf both depend on innovations like this one.

Original USPTO abstract

A beverage filter cartridge having a cup, a filter, a lid and at least one beverage ingredient is provided where the cup and lid are sealed together to form an interior chamber which is separated into a first and second compartments by the filter, which is preferably basket or cone shaped, and a beverage ingredient such as coffee is contained inside first compartment, and at least one of the cup, lid and filter contains calcium carbonate in an amount effective to either improve the ability of beverage makers to pierce the cup or to provide a means for the cartridge to absorb CO 2 emitted by the ingredient thereby reducing the hold time to packing and reducing the number of defective cartridges.

Patent details

Publication number: US 2,010,288,131
Filing date: 2009-05-13
Grant date: Application — not yet granted
Assignee: Curwood, Inc.
Inventor(s): KILBER STEPHEN MARK, WUEST SAM EDWARD, MELBYE MICHAEL HOLMES
CPC class: A47J31/0673

View original record on Google Patents →

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