<story><title>Keurig Will Use DRM In New Coffee Maker</title><url>http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140227/06521826371/keurig-will-use-drm-new-coffee-maker-to-lock-out-refill-market.shtml</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>ignostic</author><text>This case doesn&amp;#x27;t have anything to do with DRM as the title suggest. It&amp;#x27;s more clear in the article: &amp;quot;the java-bean equivalent of DRM&amp;quot;. As far as I can tell it&amp;#x27;s actually just allegations of patent abuse and anti-competitive vertical integration.&lt;p&gt;Keurig had a patent on the technology for both machine and pod. That patent expired in 2012, allowing third-party vendors to start making pods. Treehouse Foods argues (among other things) that Keurig is changing the design of their machine and the pods. The allegation is that the new design doesn&amp;#x27;t have any practical purpose other than to maintain the patent on pods for several years.&lt;p&gt;If true, this is going to be an interesting case. Keurig can change the design of their machine whenever they want in theory, but can they do so for no other reason than to maintain their own market share? They&amp;#x27;d be effectively forcing everyone to pay them to compete at all so long as people buy new machines.&lt;p&gt;Drug companies often employ similar patent tricks in order to maintain their dominance of a market via extended patents, patents on new uses for the same chemical, and slightly-altered and somewhat improved chemicals. Consumer groups have complained about this for years, but nothing serious has changed yet.</text></comment>
<story><title>Keurig Will Use DRM In New Coffee Maker</title><url>http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140227/06521826371/keurig-will-use-drm-new-coffee-maker-to-lock-out-refill-market.shtml</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>mikegioia</author><text>I actively try to dissuade people from buying Keurig machines, or any &amp;quot;coffee pod&amp;quot; machine and this is just another reason why. Aside from the fact that the coffee is watery, the pods just add such an unnecessary amount of garbage to something that doesn&amp;#x27;t need to generate any waste.&lt;p&gt;I think the concept is cool but re-usable pods are the way to go. This is stupid of Keurig.</text></comment>