US 5,402,707 · Granted 1995-04-04

The Patent That Turned Coffee Pods Into a Billion-Dollar Business

Imagine a sealed metal pod packed with ground coffee or tea. This patent describes the machine that punctures and floods that pod with hot water under pressure, forcing the brewed liquid out through tiny holes and into your cup. It's the engineering behind every single-serve coffee system you've ever seen.

Curated and verified by the IsItPatented Editorial team

The plain-English version

What it protects

The claim covers a beverage-making system with three key parts working together: a water injector that forces pressurized hot water into a sealed cartridge, a cartridge holder with a specially designed flow grille and relief surface, and a mechanism that deforms and tears the cartridge's face so the brewed liquid can flow through the grille and out to the user. What's protected here is this specific combination of puncturing, pressure, and drainage design.

Why it matters

This patent became foundational to Nestec's Nespresso system and similar pod-based brewing machines. By patenting the exact mechanism for extracting beverage from sealed capsules, the company created a closed ecosystem where users had to buy compatible cartridges. This design became the template for the entire single-serve coffee and tea industry, generating enormous revenue through recurring cartridge sales rather than one-time machine purchases.

Real-world use

Every time you slot a Nespresso pod into the machine and press the button, you're watching this patented mechanism perforate the capsule and force hot water through it to make your espresso.

Original USPTO abstract

Systems for preparing comestibles, particularly beverages, from substances contained in sealed cartridges have a water injector, a support for a cartridge holder and a cartridge holder which includes a flow grille and relief surface element so that upon introducing water under pressure into the cartridge to prepare a beverage, a face of the cartridge adjacent the relief surface element and flow grille is deformed and then torn to enable a fluid comestible to be removed from the cartridge and pass through the relief surface element and grille.

Patent details

Publication number: US 5,402,707
Filing date: 1992-05-06
Grant date: 1995-04-04
Assignee: Nestec S.A.
Inventor(s): FOND; OLIVIER, LAVANCHY; GERARD, YOAKIM; ALFRED
CPC class: A47J31/3695

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