Apple ipod

Coffee capsules and iPhone

1 – Past and Future

There is a beautiful expression French, to my knowledge, has no literal English equivalent: Jump retirement pay better. That's what we do at times: the return of this step forward safely disposed of in the future. This also applies to coffee and its technology: it can be useful to look back and learn from our past, and use as a guide.

If we go back and see the time from "the invention of coffee, we see that the history of coffee" know "is incredibly short. If you take a subway to represent the time elapsed since the birth of Coffea arabica genetic (apparently born as a variation of canephora, a million years), the influence of coffee on human life is a period equivalent to the last two mm: in fact, we are led to believe that the consumption of Coffee has begun (approximately? perhaps?) around the Christian year zero somewhere in Ethiopia.

Following this line of thought, a western point of the equivalent linear history of coffee seen only four tenths of a millimeter: 400 years have passed since that fateful day when Clement VIII baptized coffee (the same year as Pope leaves even Giordano Bruno burned at the stake), whereas only 300 years have passed since the Amsterdam stock exchange has begun No trading Yemen coffee (which was in Indonesia, Dutch Batavia), and just 200 years or so Camille Desmoulins (at the Café de Foy in Paris) shouted: "Call to Arms", which marks the beginning of the French Revolution – but more important for us this officially licensed cafes placesin opinion gossip went public policy.

In fact, if we think of coffee the technology itself, we face the same short period. In 2006, celebrate the centenary of the first public exhibition of espresso machines in the Universal Expo in Milan. And even if you look above under pressure (Or at least moderate pressure) brewing methods, we find Angelo Moriondo in the 1880s and 1860s Loysiel – all for only 150 years.

Finally, if you look at the history knowledge in the field of flavors (perhaps the most intriguing feature of coffee), we that science coffee made a major breakthrough with the invention of gas chromatography in the 1950s. In fact, the identification of aromatic coffee decade has been a jump in 1968 (about 180 flavors available) and 1978 (about 580 flavors available). In those years we knew nothing of flavors of coffee, even automobiles, telephones, computers and all the Beatles had already been invented.

How do we know about coffee today?

2 – Patents (&) COFFEE OF INNOVATION

Talk about innovation in general terms, how more prudent for companies focused on innovation to protect their results is by a patent. Patents protect investments in R & D Against the riders 'easy': companies that want to copy the costs of innovative products, effortlessly acquire the technology using the knowledge others took months or years to develop. This is the case in the Senseo Douwe Egberts system / Philips patents had and not the market has been flooded with (cheaper) for me too. In fact, if we look at another way, patent protection is a limitation of competition law – which is the reason that patents have time limits and costs money.

It is known that Small businesses are more adaptable, flexible and responsive in an environment to nurture innovative thinking. Small businesses, with its short lines of command, adjusting better risk-taking companies, such as those needed to cope with the unpredictability of real innovation. However, once the technology increasingly less fluid, small innovations can be easily developed and patented by the mass of large companies, then use property rights Many programs that have intellectual defense of patents to maintain or gradually increase their market share. In other words, more than one industry tends to maturity, the greater the economic power of each competitor that really matters, are also involved in innovation. This is true in the automotive, oil industries, and in the world of consumer electronics. See for example this data:

COMPANY NO. Growth PATENTS

(EPO database) 9/2009-2/2010

PHILIPS> 100,000 NA

SAMSUNG> 100,000 NA

SONY> 100,000 NA

SHELL 81 240 + 0.8%

EXXON 50.246 NA

MICROSOFT 47 670 7.05%

NESTLE 19 091 + 0.21%

18.758 PEUGEOT NA

FIAT 14 463 + 0.51%

MERCEDES 7966 + 0.21%

APPLE 7898 + 9.05%

GOOGLE 2.508 + 16.65%

AMAZON 570 + 12.42%

(Source: Database EPO Online accessed February 8, 2010, the growth data available on September 17, 2009)

If we compare in February 2010, the EPO with similar data for research in September 2009, we can say that regardless of the maturity of a particular industry, patents are good indicators Technology Development "liveliness" of the industry. In about five months that the IT companies grow by double digits and (even in absolute terms) are in the top of the list in terms of number of new patents. The statistics confirm our belief: the latest technology, the greater the rate of new patents. The technical support of this observation coffee?

Probably yes, in the sense that the majority of patents are presented in terms the most recent areas of coffee research. In the case of the most popular beverage in the world "" We know this is the only service on the market. It because, until recently of coffee were a major disadvantage: must be prepared. Unlike wine, where only a cork between the product manufactured from coffee experience depends on the skills of the person responsible for its preparation. (In the best knowledge of the maker of the coffee machine.)

Until very recently, except for the most people with this rule was instant coffee – one of the reasons why, despite its theoretical inferiority, Dried Coffee is both very popular and patent issue more innovative, especially by leaders such as Nestle and Kraft Jacobs /. From this point of view, innovation in industry automobile and coffee reveals identical features: a set-up work, mainly developed market leaders.

Shipping instant coffee (and we'll include in this group of younger brother liquid coffee) little progress in the preparation of coffee – or rather, run – was made much time. I'm talking about when the French began using socks (the socks witch not exactly) to filter coffee, and a German housewife (Melitta Bentz) refined the French idea of "inventing" a paper cone filter. Finally, all this has been revolutionized by the Italians, who has found a way to completely different from the pleasures of caffeine and brewing began at high pressure, making invent espresso. But after Cremona and Gaggia, which is second World War, it seems that – for a long time – coffee technologists believe that "everything has been said," as folk singer Nick Drake has sung few dared to change all known rules.

This is why recent trends "ready to prepare" packaging has been offset by an equally impressive new patents registered in this area of research on small coffee. Among these are many small businesses. In fact, while in the auto industry such as manufacturing or oil, the number patents filed by a given society tend to be a photocopy of their respective market shares, this does not happen in the market Single serving coffee. See for yourself:

Contains the number of candidates.
word "coffee" Patent
Summary

Nestec 5.578 329

KRAFT 286 10 140

UCC 79 233

43 Douwe Egberts 463

TCHIBO 38 123

Illycaffè 99 297

Keurig 6122

February 93 TUTTOESPRESSO

May 55 LAVAZZA

(Source: Online database of the EPO, February 08 2010)

3 – SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL

At first glance, the huge number of patents in the cafe between ninety-now lead us to believe that the patented innovation in the coffee industry has played a similar role it has played in many mature industries. Two different arguments confirm and further limit the validity of this statement and allow us to better target our views on innovation of coffee.

First, is true: innovation integrated into many of these patents is not a different type. Often, waste, defensive patents are not comparable to those of Cremona in 1938 and – more later – Achille Gaggia extraordinary barista (a copy of Cremona, to some extent) is deposited and integrated into their devices.

Only the latest technology mixture appear to be quite innovative. As mentioned above, are designed for closed systems, such as Nespresso and Monodora (mainly deposited in the years eighties and nineties) or HyperEspresso Illy, and – to me, and – MaxEx Tuttoespresso (between 2003 and 2006).

No doubt, surprisingly, or intuitively – depending their point of view – in the service unique systems were the most obvious way to improve the quality and brewing coffee patents innovation. I say intuitively because the systems of the size of a service is, so far the cheapest way to add an idea of the repeatability of the preparation of high quality coffee. I say this because of surprise or HyperEspresso MaxEx products guarantee a total amount of coffee extracts higher than that usually obtained with standards currently available.

At the end of the day "Coffee Machines" today's coffee consumers – the quality is not guaranteed to find ceteris paribus – Traditional (and more expensive) professional machines, which provide a more enjoyable experience of coffee, or – more technical – Enhancing the hedonic sensory profile. After all, Nespresso can be marketed as a luxury high-quality, but (even with the "second generation capsules espresso "as Illy or Kimbo Hyperespresso MaxEx) is an expensive way to get a good espresso.

Which brings us to our second line of thought: the number of patents filed by the technicians of coffee does not correspond to their respective market share, and this is contrary to what one might expect that industries mature – like the coffee industry in general is considered.

The Kraft and Nestec (Nestlé R & D company) of the data cited above are too fake to be considered as representative: the total number of patents including several areas of research beyond coffee, and elsewhere, using the word "coffee" in the abstract, as an indicator of technology is related to the coffee is not enough, they would have to include several other terms such as "container" "Capsule", "drink", "distributor", etc, but the observation of other companies (all who are involved primarily in coffee and vary considerably in size), we can conclude that there is no direct correlation between the mass of funding and the number of patents filed. The underlying reason for this lack of correlation is that the technology of coffee, and especially the technology of making coffee, is (ironically) still in a liquid phase and some of these systems described "coffee as future experiments.

Many of these systems are relatively small companies. Indeed, when seeking the "Ultimate extraction method, developed Illy Hyperespresso perhaps inspired by a capsule with a small start-up called Ithaca established by one of the two gentlemen behind the UNOPS. And history tends to repeat itself, while UNOPS was bought by Lavazza 20 years ago (and used to build the Espresso Point system to win) Ithaca is now owned 50% by illy. The same with Lavazza Blue (created on the license fees negotiated with a former employee Nestec) and even the origin of everything, with their sheaths Cyrus Melikian paper in 1950, began as a small businessman.

4 – Value chains and iPhone

To gain a more significant, however, our observations should be used in conjunction with business theories have developed to explain globalization in its final version of the twentieth century. We hear words like global value chain and oligopsonists, concepts that serve a purpose simple: identify the World actor controls the generation of value of their own industry. In the case of coffee, oligopsonists are living proof that these concepts are not cosmetic jargon used by business schools to graduate students: they are conceptual models designed to explain the sharp reality and why – is in Romania, Brazil or the Philippines – It is difficult to find a market for coffee in one of the coffee is not oligopsonists show the way.

Viral marketing, 360 concepts of co-marketing, branding and ubiquitous redundant are the most visible features of the oligopsonists. In the Colors window dressing is a terrible financial and family mass or absolute control of distribution channels, the essential features for people who want to succeed in the seduction of the masses. These companies can adapt their language at all levels of a single field socio-political configuration of images and environmental regulations of their own future, because we tend to sell ours.

Seen through the filter this analysis, R & D creates a rigid barrier of the smallest, when oligopsonists pay hundreds of patents on the market. However, we have seen that R & D may be an opportunity for small enterprises, since innovation is a job best suited to small teams of slow, rich companies in the hierarchy, bureaucratic. In fact, every time the technology is still fluid, innovative tools available to smaller operators and it is very difficult or tried (always depending on your perspective) for the main: they represent a shortcut to a competitive advantage.

Therefore, if we take example of the mobile phone industry, Apple has acquired FingerWorks, a small company that had developed a touch-screen technology is praised by the iPhone. Apple now owns these interely delicious (and patented) Features: This means that for a long time, up to twenty years, most likely Apple is to prevent the characteristics appear in any similar mobile phones. No wonder that when you search "iPhone" on Google gives 454 million visits while "God" is just 372 million. I tried the same search in September 2009 and it was different: "God" has accumulated 381 million hits, while the iPhone had "only" 372 million euros. I think – in the last five months – something must have been brewing up there in heaven.

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