The Nespresso war -battle for the pods.

by Chee Leng
(Singapore)

Sometime back, I have written that a former nespresso executive formed a company to sell "nespresso pods" in France supermarket.

I was surprised that nespresso was not taking any actions. They did.

It includes a legal suit against the Ethical Coffee Company, one that is selling the OEM nespresso pods in supermarkets, on infringing the patent.

It is likely to be lengthy fight, but personally I think nespresso would win the fight, they have the resources for a long legal battle, the smaller company do not have.

But for both parties it is worth the fight. Ethical coffee company, since July has sold more than 30 millions pieces of pods (big business).

And in Europe, coffee pods make up about 40% of the 17 Billion coffee business, so all these are very big numbers, definitely worth fighting over.

For nespresso, that have millions on advertising, this fight is even more important to them. I especially love the commercial with George Clooney, and the fact is this commercial did give them great boost to sales.

With this legal fight around the corner, nespresso have other things to worry about. Their patent is ending in 2012, so they might have to find other ways to ward off competitors from copying their products....