The most interesting thing about this is how it plays with the patents. As has been discussed on this board many times, while two of GMCR's K-Cup patents expire this year, the patents protecting the brewers are good past 2020.

So here is the scenario:

1) GMCR starts building K-Cups with RFID tags embedded. These are the same size as current K-Cups, and will brew in either existing machines (without RFID readers) or in the new RFID-enabled machines.

2) A few months later, GMCR starts building brewers with the RFID reader, which won't brew K-Cups that don't have the RFID chips. GMCR discontinues production of the non-RFID-enabled brewers. GMCR doesn't make public the RFID code format, or simply copyrights the codes needed to allow the brewing cycle to activate.

Suddenly, the Keurig monopoly on K-Cups gets a boost for almost another decade. This September, when competitors can build their own unlicensed K-Cups, they will be faced with the fact that the brewers being sold require the RFID tags, and they can't legally produce compatible K-Cups. And they can't build their own brewers because of the numerous and broad-ranging patents protecting the Keurig machines.

No company is going to invest in these expensive packaging lines that produce K-Cups that can only be brewed in an orphaned product line.