US 6,079,315 · Granted 2000-06-27

How Keurig's Coffee Pod Cartridge Ejector Became Automatic

Keurig figured out a clever way to automatically kick out used coffee pods when you open the lid of their single-serve brewer. The whole holder tilts and pivots, powered by a mechanical arm on the lid, so you never have to fish out a soggy spent cartridge by hand.

Curated and verified by the IsItPatented Editorial team

The plain-English version

What it protects

The claim covers a cup-shaped holder with an internal ejection mechanism that automatically dislodges a spent beverage cartridge from a piercing member when the lid opens. It also protects the mechanical connection between the lid's dependency arm and a pawl on the holder's trunnions—the pivot points—that causes the entire holder to rock into a partially inverted position and dump the cartridge into a waste receptacle below. What's protected here is the complete chain of mechanical action: the pivoting motion, the automatic ejection timing, and the specific way the lid controls the holder's tilt.

Why it matters

This patent is foundational to Keurig's single-serve coffee business model. The automatic cartridge ejection removes friction from the user experience—no one wants to handle a hot, wet, used pod. By making the system so convenient that the machine itself does the work, Keurig made their pod-based brewing system genuinely appealing at scale. The patent protects a core mechanical workflow that became central to how millions of households brew coffee every morning.

Real-world use

Every time you pop open the lid on a Keurig machine after brewing, the mechanical arm built into that lid is doing exactly what this patent describes—automatically tilting the cartridge holder and flicking out the spent pod.

Original USPTO abstract

A cup shaped holder is internally provided with an ejection mechanism which serves to automatically dislodge a spent beverage cartridge from an upwardly extending piercing member when the lid is opened at the end of a brewing cycle. In addition, the holder is mounted on externally protruding trunnions for pivotal movement between an upright brewing position and a partially inverted position to eject the dislodged cartridge from the holder into an underlying receptacle. The lid has a dependency arm that coacts with a pawl on the holder trunnions to automatically manipulate the holder to eject the cartridge.

Patent details

Publication number: US 6,079,315
Filing date: 1999-01-19
Grant date: 2000-06-27
Assignee: Keurig, Inc.
Inventor(s): BEAULIEU; RODERICK H., WUERTELE; JAMES W., SWEENEY; RICHARD P., SYLVAN; JOHN E., WORAM; MICHAEL G., FOCHT; KENNETH A., KWO; JENNIE
CPC class: A47J31/3638

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