This is my favorite new espresso maker. It is also — paradoxically — an argument against patents.
The Nespresso machine, by everyone’s favorite Swiss uncle, Nestlé, chocolate maker to the Gods.
It has a handle that goes up and down. A pod that gets dropped into a slot. And a mechanism that pierces the pod with tiny holes, allowing hot water to be expressed through it, thereby making — ta dah! — espresso.
Apparently it is also associated with 170 patents.
170.
Really.
Want to hazard a guess how many pods they’ve pre-sold into the international market for 2011?
7 billion.
That will pay for a bit of patent litigation, eh?
I am a commercial litigator and intellectual property lawyer in Orange County. Although my practice encompasses a wide variety of business disputes, I have a particular fondness for, and am prone to wax philosophical on, the subjects of copyright and trademark infringement in music, literature, art, and film.