Patent Application
20170210553
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material that is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
The present disclosure relates, in general, to individualized packaging for coffee, tea, herbs, organics and generally elutable or dissolvable material and more particularly to personal brewing technology.
The American populace loves their coffee. Most people begin their day with a cup of their favorite blend while others continue to partake throughout the day, commonly obtaining it from a commercial vendor such as Starbucks®. However, of lately, many brew their own coffee using an individual brewing device such as a Keurig® brand coffee brewer. These allow for individual sized brewings using what have been come to be known as “k cups” or “coffee pods”.
Along with a populace that loves their coffee, come a segment of coffee aficionados. This breed of coffee drinker seeks specific coffee beans or coffee bean blends. The commercial coffee vendor market has rallied to meet this segment's demand, with most stores offering a plethora of coffee beans, however the selection of available coffee pods lags far behind. This is understandable, as to stock numerous blends of quantity boxed coffee pods takes up valuable store space. Thus, the coffee aficionado that relies on their individual brewing device has a rather limited selection.
This situation worsens when the coffee aficionado is at a location away from his individual brewing device or only has bulk brewing capabilities. Such an example would be rough woods camping. With the cost of these specialty beans as high as they are, no one wants to waste good coffee on the unappreciative or those with an undiscerning palate.
Additionally, to date the commercially available coffee pods are made from non biodegradable polymers. In the absence of standards governing the reporting of all “green” product packaging, manufactures report low weight percentages of non biodegradable materials in their pods based on the inclusion of the coffee (often even wet).
Henceforth, an improved system that allows the coffee aficionado that uses an individual brewing device (or that only has the most rudimentary brewing equipment such as a pot a fire and water) to brew their favorite blend would fulfill a long felt need in the coffee industry. Such a system made truly “green” would further offer an ecological benefit. This new invention utilizes and combines known and new technologies in a unique and novel configuration to overcome the aforementioned problems and accomplish this.
In accordance with various embodiments, an apparatus for allowing the individualized brewing of specialty coffee is provided.
In one aspect, a specialty coffee pod is provided that is made from 100% by weight biodegradable materials, therein reducing the amount of non biodegradable material going into the landfills.
In another aspect, an apparatus that requires the bare minimum of equipment to brew a cup of coffee and that can be tailored to user specific tastes is provided.
In yet another aspect, a custom fillable coffee pod that can be used with a high speed, high volume, point of sale mechanized coffee distributing device is provided.
Various modifications and additions can be made to the embodiments discussed without departing from the scope of the invention. For example, while the embodiments described above refer to particular features, the scope of this invention also includes embodiments having different combination of features and embodiments that do not include all of the above described features.
A further understanding of the nature and advantages of particular embodiments may be realized by reference to the remaining portions of the specification and the drawings, in which like reference numerals are used to refer to similar components. In some instances, a sub-label is associated with a reference numeral to denote one of multiple similar components. When reference is made to a reference numeral without specification to an existing sub-label, it is intended to refer to all such multiple similar components.
While various aspects and features of certain embodiments have been summarized above, the following detailed description illustrates a few exemplary embodiments in further detail to enable one skilled in the art to practice such embodiments. The described examples are provided for illustrative purposes and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention.
In the following description, for the purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the described embodiments. It will be apparent to one skilled in the art, however, that other embodiments of the present invention may be practiced without some of these specific details. In other instances, certain structures and devices are shown in block diagram form. Several embodiments are described herein, and while various features are ascribed to different embodiments, it should be appreciated that the features described with respect to one embodiment may be incorporated with other embodiments as well. By the same token, however, no single feature or features of any described embodiment should be considered essential to every embodiment of the invention, as other embodiments of the invention may omit such features.
Unless otherwise indicated, all numbers herein used to express quantities, dimensions, and so forth, should be understood as being modified in all instances by the term “about.” In this application, the use of the singular includes the plural unless specifically stated otherwise, and use of the terms “and” and “or” means “and/or” unless otherwise indicated. Moreover, the use of the term “including,” as well as other forms, such as “includes” and “included,” should be considered non-exclusive. Also, terms such as “element” or “component” encompass both elements and components comprising one unit and elements and components that comprise more than one unit, unless specifically stated otherwise.
As used herein, the term “coffee pod” refers to the individualized coffee bean filled containers of the present invention, however it is known that tea, herbs, coco, powdered milk, and other dissolvable or elutable materials may be substituted for the coffee beans packaged in the containers of the present invention. Any reference to coffee herein shall be understood to incorporate the aforementioned materials.
As used herein the terms “inflatable” and “inflatably expanedable” refer to the characteristic of a body in a spatially compressed configuration that may be expanded to its full spatial configuration with the application of air, application of a vacuum or application of a mechanical pusher there into. The body need not be airtight to allow this expansion.
As used herein the term “means for separation” refers to a mechanical device disposed between adjacent coffee pods that allows for the separation of the pods by such means as tearing, increasing in physical spacing between pods, twisting or stretching and cutting. Perforations incorporated onto the tab joining adjacent coffee pods would be one example thereof.
As used herein the term “compressible” refers to the ability for an article to be reduced to a spatially compressed configuration that represents a fraction of the space that it occupies in its expanded or operational state.
As used herein, the term “biodegradable” means 100% natural material capable of breaking down to a cellular level by decomposed by bacteria or other living organisms.
The terms “means for separation” and “means for the connected movement of an array of separable individual pods” as used herein including the claims, is to be interpreted according to 35 USC 112, [para] 6.
The present invention relates to a novel design for a coffee pod that may be utilized in conjunction with a high speed, high volume point of sale, mechanized coffee distributing device.
While certain features and aspects have been described with respect to exemplary embodiments, one skilled in the art will recognize that numerous modifications are possible. For example, while various methods and processes described herein may be described with respect to particular structural and/or functional components for ease of description, methods provided by various embodiments are not limited to any particular structural and/or functional architecture. Similarly, while certain functionality is ascribed to certain system components, unless the context dictates otherwise, this functionality can be distributed among various other system components in accordance with the several embodiments.
The coffee pod is best disclosed after an brief explanation of the point of sale device in which the pod is designed to be stored, expanded, filled, sealed, detached from its array, and dispensed. This is best illustrated with reference to
Looking at
As can be seen the preferred embodiments of
In the preferred embodiment the pods will reside on a specific location on a conveyor belt or track 36. This positioning may be accomplished with a revolving toothed cog or gear that advances and locates the linear array of pods via a series of perforations (not illustrated) formed through the upper face of the pod, as is well known in the industry. In the preferred embodiment there are a series of orifices formed through the track 36 in which the well section of the pods reside, once inflated/expanded.
In the preferred embodiment, this means for separation is a series of perforations formed through the approximate center of the connection tab 31 joining the coffee pods. (
There is a plethora of other embodiments which the means for separation 30 could take. It could be a line of flexible mastic joining two short tabs that abut each other, it could be a releasable, flexible, adhesive strip spanning and affixed to two short tabs extending from each coffee pod top, it could be a frangible strip residing between two short tabs extending from the coffee pod top, or the like. In an other embodiment of the means to separate, the filter media used to form the fillable well could be made from a roll of filter media extended beyond the well to conjoin adjacent coffee pods 4, possibly forming the wells on adjacent coffee pods. The coffee pods would then lack a tab but rather, would be conjoined in a linear fashion by the length of filter media that formed all of the wells. There could be notches or perforation lines on any of the aforementioned means to allow separation in the way described that occurs at the curved end of the track 36, The primary criteria for selection would be the resilience to minor twisting or expansive forces below a critical level without allowing the release of adjacent pods.
In the first, simplest, embodiment of
In this embodiment the support structure is only the upper lid 56 and adhesive 54. The well section may be stretched or pleat folded with or without the use of a concave mold to form its concave configuration. The upper lid 56 is generally circular and has a pair of connection tabs 31 extending therefrom its exterior periphery. The upper lid 56 is made in a connected linear series with upper lids used for the adjacent coffee pods 4. The connection tabs 31 are disposed 180 radial degrees apart on the upper lid 56. The means for separating 30 is seen as a linear series of perforations extending axially across the tabs 31 at the midpoint between adjacent upper lids 56. The cap 62 is separate from the rest of the coffee pod 4 and is adhesively affixed to the periphery of the upper face of the upper lid 56 by a 100% biodegradable adhesive 54.
It is to be noted that the upper lid 56 has an orifice 64 therein to accommodate both the means for well expanding (air inflater) and the doser so as to allow the expansion of the pod 4 and the insertion of ground coffee beans. The upper lid 56 will be made of a 100% biodegradable material such as a natural paper or cellulose fiber. The upper lid 56 will act as a stiffener and be of thick enough material and will have enough material existing about its planar surface to ensure that the coffee pod 4 does not collapse when being pierced by a single serving coffee brewing machine. The cap 62 will also be made of a 100% biodegradable material.
The second embodiment coffee pod of
The third embodiment of
It is to be noted that similar to the ribbon format, in the tape format each compressed pod 2 is seperably connected to its three or four adjacent compressed pods 2 (the one in front, the one behind, and the one on the left or right side, or the two on both the left and right sides) by a connection tab 31 with a means for separation 30 disposed thereon. Alternate embodiments of the means for separation, as discussed above, may be utilized and more than one embodiment of means for separation may be used on the conjoined pods in a single tape format 80.
The expansion of the compressed coffee pod 2 (
As can be seen from the above disclosure, a linear series of successively linked compressible, shell less coffee pods having a means for separating coffee pods located on the hingeable connection tabs, allows for the rapid commercial filling of individual coffee pods. Elimination of the conventional water-tight polymer pods results in a coffee pod that may be used with or without a single serving coffee machine. It is ideal for making a single hot cup of coffee from a cup of boiling water or a single cold cup of tea.
The packaging of the conventional polymer hard shell coffee pods adds an upcharge to the price of the coffee by approximately 30%. Not only does the present invention drastically minimize this, it allows the user to select their own, fresh blend of coffee (or their desired brewable organ material) in an amount of coffee pods that they need. The biodegradable feature of the entire coffee pod just adds to the environmental friendliness of the device.
The system components described according to a particular structural architecture and/or with respect to one embodiment may be organized in alternative structural architectures. Hence, while various embodiments are described with—or without—certain features for ease of description and to illustrate exemplary aspects of those embodiments, the various components and/or features described herein with respect to a particular embodiment can be substituted, added, and/or subtracted from among other described embodiments, unless the context dictates otherwise. Consequently, although several exemplary embodiments are described above, it will be appreciated that the invention is intended to cover all modifications and equivalents within the scope of the following claims.
