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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Drop

With USPTO Denial, Perfect’s Lawsuit Against Drop Moves to Trial

The ongoing, multi-year, multi-patent infringement legal battle Perfect Company brought against Adaptics Ltd, maker of the Drop cooking system, will be heading to federal court this summer. This next phase of the lawsuit comes after the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) denied institution of Inter Partes Review. Perfect announced the decision in a press release yesterday.

Without getting too far into the legal weeds, an Inter Partes Review (IPR) is:

“… a trial proceeding conducted at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to review the patentability of one or more claims of an issued patent.” (via Smith & Hopen, U.S. registered patent attorneys)

Basically, it was Drop’s last chance to keep this lawsuit, which started in 2014, from going to trial. This IPR denial was over Perfect’s Patent 9,772,217, and follows a previous legal win for Perfect over its Patent 8,829,365. With both patents upheld by the USPTO board, the lawsuit moves on to trial in federal court in Tacoma, WA from June 3 – 6, 2019.

At its center, the dispute is over patents around the use of smart scales for weighing ingredients that communicate with apps for guided cooking. Perfect Company products include: Perfect Drink app-controlled bartending system, Perfect Bake app-controlled baking system and Perfect Kitchen PRO app-controlled smart kitchen system. The company also licenses out its technology for products include the Vitamix Perfect Blend and the NutriBullet Balance.

Drop started out in the hardware space, making its own connected cooking scale, but later abandonded that that in favor of integrating its software platform into the likes of GE Appliances, LG, Thermomix and Kenwood.

I spoke with Perfect Company CEO, Michael Wallace yesterday about the IPR denial, and asked him what the end goal of the lawsuit is. “What we’re really doing is protecting our space and our IP with our patents,” Wallace said, “The Adaptics guys have refused to pay a royalty or agree to our terms for a license.”

We reached out to Drop, and its Co-Founder and CEO Ben Harris provided us with the following statement:

“While Drop does not comment on pending litigation, we don’t infringe any of Perfect’s patents and are continuing to challenge the validity of Perfect’s patents in Federal Court. We look forward to our court date in June when a jury will finally decide if Perfect’s patents are valid and remain focused on our mission of building the KitchenOS, a unified solution for the smart kitchen that connects the whole cooking journey, of which Drop Scale is just one of hundreds of appliances.”

What was of particular note in the press announcement surrounding the latest USPTO ruling is that Perfect called out Drop investor Alsop Louie by name. Alsop Louie Partners led the $8 million Series A that Drop raised last year, and I asked Wallace why Perfect mentioned them specifically.

“Alsop made a big bet on them. We thought it was important,” said Wallace, “This is a big investment bet. We decided to call that out. The money they are spending on this case are investment dollars.”

Whether this rattles Drop’s investor remains to be seen, but unless this dispute settles relatively soon, we’ll see both parties in court.

Drop Wades Into Kitchen Appliance Voice Control with Siri Integration

Kitchen tech company, Drop, announced today that it will be launching its first foray into voice control of kitchen appliances via its new Siri integration.

Voice control is a particularly interesting interface in the kitchen, where sticky fingers and loads of wet ingredients aren’t great for touching devices like iPads and smart screens. Being able to “talk” to your oven or your sink while knead-deep in dough, promises to make cooking more efficient.

To that end, Drop, which up to now has offered guided cooking recipes and remote control of select appliances via phones and tablets, has started the process of adding voice control. Interestingly, the first voice integration isn’t with the omnipresent Alexa, or even Google Assistant, it’s with Apple’s Siri. A Drop corporate blog post explained the decision, saying that the company had previously worked with and had good experiences with Apple and that Siri’s voice command recognition was superior to either Google or Alexa’s.

The blog post also explained that user and data privacy was a priority for Drop, with the company even invoking GDPR:

Also, unusually among big tech companies, Apple has maintained a firm standpoint on user privacy. Whereas assessing and analyzing user data from the cloud allows other companies (most notably Google and Facebook) to improve their AI capabilities, it does so at the expense of user privacy. With Apple, all processing of Siri shortcuts is implemented directly on the device, rather than by sending sound-bytes from our homes out to the cloud.

Security is something which has been, and will always be, of utmost importance to us at Drop. An example of this was achieving GDPR compliancy well ahead of schedule, going to great lengths to restrict data collection and access internally. We also have a rigid approach to building infrastructure and implementing and enforcing security measures.

In addition to rolling out on just one platform, at first Drop’s voice control will only make you coffee, and that coffee has to be made with Bosch Coffee Machines equipped with Home Connect technology. As you can see from the video below, once set up, you can just have to say “Hey Siri, make me an espresso” and it automatically fires up the Bosch coffee maker. Drop said it will be adding voice controls to more recipes that will work with more appliances.

Drop Test Lab: Making an espresso with Drop Recipes and the Bosch Coffee Machine

While it probably won’t go mainstream this year, voice control is becoming more central to the kitchen experience. GE Appliances and Electrolux expanded their Google Assistant capabilities last summer, LG’s Thinq appliances work with both Alexa and Google Assistant, Drop rival, Innit is working with Google, and Amazon built its own Alexa-powered microwave. Drop’s adoption of Siri is a nice feather in the cap for Apple’s assistant, and further evidence that voice control will soon become ubiquitous in our appliances and apps and throughout our homes.

LG to Integrate Drop into its Smart Appliances

Drop, the smart recipe software startup, today announced a partnership that will put its guided cooking software on LG’s SmartThinq line of appliances. This adds to a growing list of major appliance companies that are working with Drop and further illustrates how LG is taking a very open approach when it comes to software partnerships.

Drop’s software provides guided recipes for cooks, and hardware integreations such as the one with LG allows the user to control appliances via the Drop app. Drop CEO, Ben Harris, told me by phone that the Drop app recently hit half a million downloads and that customers can expect to see the Drop integration start with LG ovens and cooktops go live in the next few weeks.

Drop started off as a hardware maker with its connected scale, but pivoted to creating a “Kitchen OS,” with a heavy focus on recipes, for other appliance companies. The company has also been the subject of a multiyear patent infringement lawsuit brought by Perfect Company.

For Drop, the LG deal bolsters its lineup of existing hardware partnerships, which includes Bosch, GE, De’Longhi and Kenwood (not the car stereo maker).

There are plenty of startups vying to be the main software layer that cooks interact with in the connected kitchen, and they are all going for the same hardware partnerships. Rivals SideChef and Innit both announced integrations with LG appliances at CES earlier this year.

For it’s part, LG is showing that it’s open to being, well, open to all comers in the connected kitchen software space. In addition to SideChef and Innit, LG’s SmartThinq appliances work with both Amazon Alexa and Google.

Based in Ireland and San Francisco, Drop has raised $12 million in funding and has 30 employees.

Electrolux & Innit Partner to Help Consumers Navigate the Cooking Journey

Today at the EuroCucina trade show in Milan, Italy, Electrolux announced a strategic partnership with smart kitchen platform provider Innit in which the two companies will work together to integrate Innit’s software with the Electrolux’s connected appliances to “help consumers throughout the cooking journey.”

The first Electrolux appliance to integrate with the Innit platform will be the camera-enabled steam oven introduced by the Swedish appliance giant last month. Starting in the first quarter of 2019, consumers will be able to use the Innit app to find recipes, plan their meal and send cooking instructions to the Combisteam Pro Smart oven from Electrolux. Over time, the two companies envision that users of Electrolux appliances will be able to use the Innit app as the main app to power the entire cooking process, from meal discovery to shopping to cooking.

For Innit, its partnership with the region’s biggest appliance maker marks a significant entry into a market that requires substantial understanding of country-by-country differences. Unlike the more homogeneous US market, products for the Europe market need to account for differences in consumer cooking preferences across different countries. While some countries tend to embrace surface cooking (induction, etc), others may be more inclined to cook the nightly meal in an oven. By partnering with Electrolux, Innit can tap into the appliance maker’s localization expertise and create an app tailored towards specific user requirements in each locale.

For Electrolux, its partnership with Innit is the first time the company will work with a third party application partner for its connected appliances. The company sees the partnership as a strategic move towards a common software and user experience across appliances. The two companies plan to expand to more cooking devices as well as other appliances such as refrigerators.

One benefit Electrolux sees in tapping into a software-powered cooking experience is the ability to help consumers unlock capabilities that for the most part go unused.

“Our appliances are extremely advanced and often the consumer only uses a small fragment of their capabilities,” Patrick Le Corre, Sr. VP of kitchen products at Electrolux EMEA, told me in a phone interview. “Steam cooking is the best way to cook, but their knowledge of steam cooking is limited. If you bridge the potential of our appliances with an app, we unlock the power for consumers and secure an enjoyable cooking experience.”

The deal comes at an important time as more appliance makers are honing in on strategic partners as the industry continues to transition towards software-enabled cooking. At CES, Whirlpool showed off its Yummly integration while LG announced partnerships with Innit and SideChef, and last month Kenwood launched a new multicooker powered by Drop as part of a longer-team development deal. And now with Electrolux, Innit has locked up Europe’s biggest appliance maker in what looks to be a significant potential long-term partnership.

Kenwood Partners With Drop To Create A Smart Multicooker

Today Drop and Kenwood announced a new Wi-Fi connected multicooker food processor called the kCook Multi Smart. The new countertop appliance, available this month in France for a retail price of €799.9 (about $980), is the first of a series of products that the two plan to develop in coming years under a new partnership also announced today.

The new product isn’t the first multicooker from Kenwood, a division of De’Longhi Group (and not to be confused with Kenwood of Japan), but is the first to be connected and utilize a smart kitchen software platform. The new appliance, which uses the Drop software to follow step-by-step cooking guidance when cooking a meal, has access to hundreds of machine-integrated recipes from a digital recipe database which are browsable to the user through the Drop app.

The kCook Multi Smart also comes with a scale created utilizing Drop’s technology (Drop’s original product was a smart scale) to enable app-monitored ingredient measurement as part of the cooking experience.  The inclusion of a scale is interesting in that this part of Drop’s portfolio is currently part of a multiyear legal battle with Perfect Company. This deal is a sign that Drop and Kenwood believe the legal case will not have an impact long-term.

In talking about the partnership, Kenwood CEO March Welch said he believes the new multicooker is the first connected kitchen product to really nail the consumer experience.

“The dialogue and discussion has been how to give the consumer a first class experience when trying to use a connected product. My personal view is today in the kitchen nobody is doing a good job with that, and I think our product is the first product that truly enhances the consumer experience.”

For Drop, the deal represents a significant milestone in that it is the first partner product developed from scratch based on the Drop platform. While the company inked earlier partnerships with large appliance brands such as Bosch and GE Appliances, those deals were non-exclusive integrations of the Drop software with appliances already in the market. With the kCook Multi Smart,  the Drop software and scale technology are an integral part of the product experience.

The deal is also important in that it puts Drop on the countertop, where categories like the multicooker are growing quickly. Countertop appliances also generally have lower price points and faster replacement cycles than built-in appliances, which is important for companies like Drop that build businesses around software licensing models.

The deal could also have a longer-term impact as the two companies have indicated that the kCook Multi Smart is only the first of a number of products they will co-develop under the Kenwood brand. And while the deal is currently only for the Kenwood brand, it will be interesting to see if it will eventually extend other brands under the De’Longhi Group, a multinational appliance conglomerate with roughly $2 billion in annual revenues.

You can see the new kCook in action in the promo reel below:

Kenwood kCook Multi Smart - Connected by Drop

Drop Kitchen Nabs $8 Million In Funding As Kitchen Tech Investment Heats Up

Drop Kitchen, a smart kitchen software startup based in Ireland and San Francisco, just received an $8 million Series A funding round led by Alsop Louie Partners. The round, which also included investments from Frontline, WI Harper and Irish celebrity chef Ross Lewis, brings the total investment in Drop to nearly $12 million.

According to Drop, the company plans to use the funds to “continue development of Drop’s KitchenOS platform for connected appliances in the smart kitchen of the future as well as to support the company’s partnerships with appliance manufacturers worldwide.”

The news is further indication the market for kitchen tech investments is heating up. Just yesterday we heard that June had received additional investment through Amazon’s Alexa fund, while a couple weeks ago The Spoon broke the news that Tovala had raised $9.2 million in Series A funding.

For Drop, the funding is a validation of the company’s new strategy, which marks a departure from the company’s initial focus on creating its own hardware (the Drop scale) and instead focusing on developing a software platform (Drop KitchenOS) for partners such as Bosch and GE.

As part of the announcement, Drop also indicated that well known venture capitalist Stewart Alsop, founder of Alsop Louie, will join the board.  The company also indicated that Chef Ross Lewis will help lend his expertise in developing the company’s platform and wants to utilize Drop technology in his own kitchen.

“I have always known that smart technologies were going to become incredibly important in the kitchen — so much so that I built my own digital recipe system for Chapter One’s kitchen,” Lewis told The Spoon. “When I saw Drop’s app, I knew it was the future and I wanted to integrate it into our kitchen here. I am working closely with the team to share my culinary expertise to guide all future developments, and look forward to adding recipes myself.”

I had a chance to ask Drop CEO Ben Harris a few questions about the news. You can see our interview and the full announcement below.

You indicated the capital will be for further expanding Drop’s kitchen OS and to support its appliance partners – can you be more specific on this? (hire headcount/developers, etc)?

Harris: We have been incredibly efficient with the small bit of capital we have brought in to date, by working both hard and smart. We intend to continue in that vein by investing in areas that we feel is most important to our partners and users.

There seems to be an increasing number of efforts to provide kitchen software platforms to big appliance makers. How is Drop different from other companies in terms of technology?

Harris: The kitchen is getting more and more complicated, not less. We have cooking food processors, pressure cookers, temperature probes, steaming ovens – and much more to come as more sensors are being added to the kitchen. Yet recipes (one of the most popular content medias online) know nothing about individual kitchens or their owners. They are therefore only shared with the lowest common denominator of functionality, leveraging the most basic and generic of appliances e.g “roast in an oven for X time at temperature Y”. Even non-connected kitchen appliances are capable of so much more. Drop’s responsive recipe format and technology adapts recipes to you and your kitchen – to allow those you and your appliances to shine. Through this adaptation, we ensure users get to fully benefit from the decades of research and development that manufacturers have been putting into their appliances, and through an incredibly intuitive experience. Resulting in an equivalent leap of turning a featureful WAP phone into an iPhone.

When will we see GE and Bosch products with Drop software?

Harris: Right now you can connect and control over 100 models of GEA, Bosch, Siemens and Neff ovens from the Drop Recipes App, with more to come.

Amazon announced the cooking capabilities built into the Alexa Smart Home API today – how is Drop working to build in new interfaces such as voice to enable people to cook in new ways?

Harris: Right now, all I can say is – we understand how important voice is for the kitchen.

The Drop Scale is still available for sale on Amazon – is Drop continuing to produce its own hardware?

Harris: The Drop Scale is simply a reference design as to how well hardware and software should integrate in the kitchen. We are 100% focused on the software platform right now, with our appliance partners building the hardware.

Any particular plans or ways in which Chef Lewis will be involved?

Harris: Yes – Ross is now involved in our development cycles. His culinary expertise is guiding our features and appliance integration/control strategies.

Drop Kitchen’s Full Announcement:

Smart Kitchen Company Drop Secures $8M in Funding Led by Alsop Louie Partners

San Francisco, CA and Dublin, Ireland (January 4, 2018) – Smart kitchen company Drop, today announced that it has closed $8 million in Series A venture financing, led by Alsop Louie Partners with participation from internal investors Frontline and WI Harper, and Ireland’s top chef, the Michelin-starred Ross Lewis. Drop also announced that Founder and lead Partner, Stewart Alsop has joined the company’s board of directors.

The money will be used for working capital to continue development of Drop’s KitchenOS platform for connected appliances in the smart kitchen of the future as well as to support the company’s partnerships with appliance manufacturers worldwide.

In 2017, Drop launched partnerships with Bosch and GE Appliances, making it possible for owners of connected ovens to control them straight from a recipe on the Drop platform. This coming year, the company will be announcing multiple new partnerships with the world’s largest appliance brands.

“This investment will allow us to accelerate our trajectory towards becoming the de facto platform for the smart kitchen that empowers anyone to make delicious food at home,” said Ben Harris, CEO and co-founder. “We found the perfect investor in Stewart Alsop and the team at Alsop Louie, who bring experience in growing global platforms such as Twitch, and Stewart himself has a wealth of indispensable experience, leading NEA’s investment in TiVo and sitting on Sonos’ board for seven years.”

“We invested in Drop Kitchen because Ben and his team have a real vision for how to transform the basic cultural experience of cooking and consuming food in the home, as well as making it more entertaining and engaging,” said Stewart Alsop, partner, Alsop Louie Partners. “We think Drop can make that experience magical by partnering with every consumer appliance maker around the world.”

Perfect Company Files Second Patent Infringement Claim Against Drop

The ongoing court battle between Perfect Company and the maker of the Drop scale took another turn this week when Perfect announced a new patent and an additional patent infringement claim again Adaptics Limited, the maker of the Drop scale.

According to the press release, Perfect Company has been issued an additional patent for its smart scale and recipe app platform. The new patent builds on and expands the company’s original patent (the basis of the original patent infringement lawsuit) by adding additional claims such as adding user override capabilities to add ingredients out of order and auto-advancement to the next step when an ingredient is added.

This is the latest in an ongoing multiyear legal battle between the two companies who have been tussling over intellectual property related to scale based smart cooking platforms. After the original lawsuit was filed in 2014, Adaptics soon requested a review of Perfect Company’s patent. However, things didn’t go Adaptics way. Earlier this year the US Patent office validated the Perfect Company claims.

I asked Perfect Company CEO Mike Wallace why they’ve decided to pursue Adaptics so aggressively, particularly in light of what seems to be a revised strategy by Adaptics to  deemphasize Drop branded smart scales and an increased focus on licensing their software to partners.

According to Wallace, it doesn’t matter how Adaptics goes to market since what they are selling is a scale-based smart measuring system that infringes on Perfect’s intellectual property.

“Their intention is to sell a scale to every end user of the Drop software whether it comes from a sale on Amazon or a large appliance purchase,” said Wallace via email. “I wouldn’t characterize their revised business plan as a pivot as much as an adjustment to pursue additional revenues and marketing dollars to drive users to their scale-based recipe system that competes directly with ours. Bottom line, a scale and an interactive recipe is at the heart of their technology and the way they have implemented it is a gross violation of our IP.”

I also reached out to the CEO of Adaptics, Ben Harris, to get his response about the Perfect Company’s latest legal salvo and this is what he said:

“We believe the cases are completely devout of merit; the patents are not valid because they don’t invent anything that wasn’t already well known and we don’t infringe on the patents as they are defined – so we look forward to our day in court. We plan to vigorously defend the lawsuit, and to date, all the rulings have been procedural – stating simply, that the case can proceed.”

Perfect’s effort to protect its intellectual property makes sense when considering that the company is working with large brands who are using the company’s technology. Perfect has announced partnerships with Vitamix and Nutribullet, both of which utilize the Perfect scale based system and app technology as foundations for their new products.

In late 2016 and early 2017, Adaptics announced their own deals with GE and Bosch that had the large appliance makers using the Drop software to power their smart appliance efforts. It remains to be seen if and how this legal battle will impact these partnerships.

SideChef Plans To Be The Engine Behind Sharp’s Smart Kitchen Appliances

SideChef began in 2013 with a mission to make cooking easy and fun and to take the guesswork and heavy reading out of recipes. Over time, the recipe app startup has evolved to think of itself as a platform for the connected kitchen and today announced a partnership with electronics and appliance giant Sharp at the Smart Kitchen Summit in Japan.

SideChef will now be the smart software behind Sharp’s connected appliance lineup, powering the mobile app and recipe content to provide guided cooking tools when using the brand’s products. The first internet-enabled appliance from Sharp that will include SideChef’s intelligence is the Sharp SuperSteam+ Convection Oven, an oven that includes a new way to grill, brown and even roast foods using super heated steam.

This announcement builds out SideChef’s vision of being the de facto smart kitchen platform, giving manufacturers software that can bridge the experience and control of different kitchen devices and engage users to go beyond basic connectivity. The Sharp “powered by SideChef” app will include over 5000 machine ready recipes with built-in control for the integrated appliances. The recipes give users a guided cooking experience, automatically setting timers, playing educational videos or suggesting helpful tips based on the ingredients, time of day, season or location.

SideChef’s CEO and founder Kevin Yu says that the company will also help Sharp build an engaged user community and drive relevant content – which is a core strength of SideChef’s business. But Yu hopes to help manufacturers think differently about their IoT strategies and move past connectivity as the end goal.

“We’re not just here to connect things or teach people how to cook. That’s a great goal, but that’s 1.0. We want to help manufacturers see how they can create real engagement and monetization from these platforms,” commented Yu in an interview with The Spoon.

It’s not a surprise that SideChef is thinking beyond the intelligence inside the app to the user experience and engagement. Yu’s background is in game design and development, so he’s often thinking about the gameification of activities in the kitchen.

“The goal is to get the user engaged and willing to spend more money in micro transactions. This is what we think of as modern monetization for the smart kitchen,” he adds.

Sharp is one of a handful of appliance manufacturers looking at third party companies to connect and serve as the content partner behind their connected appliances. Earlier this year smart kitchen startup Drop announced an integration partnership with GE and later Bosch and Innit, a kitchen platform and data company also explored work with Whirlpool in the past.

“Sharp was looking for ways to combine convenience with perfect cooking results from our next generation of smart connected home appliances,” Jim Sanduski, President of Sharp Home Electronics Company of America said in a prepared statement.  “SideChef already offers an award winning mobile culinary platform so partnering with them to integrate cooking operation and control was an easy decision.”

The company plans to roll out its internet-connected line of products starting with the SuperSteam wall oven along with the Sharp app powered by SideChef in fall 2018.

SideChef and Sharp announced their partnership at the first-ever Smart Kitchen Summit in Japan. To see Kevin Yu and others speak at the 2017 Smart Kitchen Summit in Seattle in October, use code SPOON for 25% off tickets.

Perfect Company Scores IP Win Against Maker Of Drop Scale

The smart kitchen IP battles are heating up.

Perfect Company, maker of the Perfect Drink and Perfect Bake smart scale systems, has scored a win against Adaptics, the company behind the Drop Scale. A request to review a Perfect Company patent by Adaptics has resulted in a US Patent and Trademark Office validation of Perfect Company’s core IP in the area of connected scales.

In December 2014, Perfect company filed a lawsuit against the makers of the Drop Scale that claimed Adaptics had infringed on their patent. The company saw the the Drop Scale in violation of their 365 patent for a smart kitchen scale connecting to a smart device with a recipe app.

In December 2016, the United States Patent and Trademark Office agreed to reexamine Perfect’s patent based on claims made by Adaptics. Just seven months later, the USPTO decided Perfect’s patent was valid.

While Adaptics has since pivoted slightly to focus on providing the Drop platform to third parties, this ruling still marks an important win for Perfect, who sees its patent portfolio as an important weapon in the increasingly competitive platform wars in the connected kitchen.  The company has been aggressive about defending its IP, and has shown itself as somewhat opportunistic when it comes to shoring up its patent portfolio with the acquisition of Orange Chef’s IP last year.

“This reexamination successfully overcomes the prior art and arguments asserted by Adaptics in our ongoing litigation,” said Mike Wallace, CEO of Perfect Company. “We believe that this decision reaffirms our position as the leader in connected kitchen technology, which we will continue to aggressively defend.”

See the full press release below:

Perfect Company Announces Successful Patent Reexamination
Further Strengthening its Place in the Connected Kitchen

July 25, 2017 – Vancouver, WA – Perfect Company, the leading developer of connected kitchen products, announces today that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) issued a decision regarding the reexamination of its US Patent 8,829,365 (“‘365 Patent”). The decision upheld the validity of one of Perfect Company’s key patents with no changes and also allowed new claims that were considered during the reexamination.

The ‘365 Patent protects Perfect Company’s system that connects a smart kitchen scale to a smart device equipped with a recipe app – wirelessly or wired – allowing for communication between the scale and the device to ensure the perfect combination of ingredients every time. Current products in the marketplace covered by the patent include the Perfect Drink® app-controlled smart bartending system, Perfect Bake™ app-controlled smart baking system, Perfect Blend™ and Vitamix Perfect Blend™ app-controlled smart blending systems and Perfect Kitchen™ PRO app-controlled smart kitchen system.

On December 12, 2014, Perfect Company filed a suit against Adaptics Ltd., maker of the Drop Scale, for infringement of its ‘365 Patent. On December 2, 2016, the USPTO agreed to reexamine the ‘365 Patent based on arguments filed by Adaptics. Just seven months later, on July 10, 2017, that reexamination came to a successful resolution for Perfect Company.

“Patent reexaminations like this can take years, and often narrow both the claims and scope of the patent. We are thrilled with the breadth, speed and success of this reexamination,” says Michael Wallace, CEO of Perfect Company. “This reexamination successfully overcomes the prior art and arguments asserted by Adaptics in our ongoing litigation. We believe that this decision reaffirms our position as the leader in connected kitchen technology, which we will continue to aggressively defend.”

The ‘365 patent has been filed world-wide and has already issued in several countries. Last year, Perfect Company acquired Orange Chef’s Prep Pad IP, which included one issued patent. Perfect Company is actively filing new patents to cover its expanding technology offering.

 

 

Analysis: Why Did Whirlpool & Innit Call It Quits?

Last week, news broke that Whirlpool and Innit’s partnership to build connected kitchen products has come to an end.

While the news came as a surprise to some, the fact that Whirlpool made a big smart kitchen splash at CES this year without any mention of Innit had us wondering last January about the status of the relationship.

Based on conversations over the past two months, this is what we have learned:

Because Innit’s relationship with Whirlpool was initially exclusive, this essentially left the smart kitchen startup on the sidelines for much of 2016 as other smart kitchen OS players such as Drop were free to talk to any number of major appliance brands. For a platform startup like Innit, there are only so many big consumer-focused kitchen brands to target, so as Drop announced deals with Bosch and GE/Haier, this put pressure on the company to essentially pursue other relationships outside of Whirlpool.

The loss of world’s biggest appliance maker from their client list no doubt hurts, but now the company is free to pursue other brands. They also have plans to amplify their own brand this year by connecting directly with consumers, the first step in which was the company’s recent acquisition of ShopWell, a personalized nutrition and food shopping app that has been downloaded over 2.5 million times. The acquisition also extends the company’s reach into the grocery and food retail market and will allow them to integrate ShopWell’s packaged food data into their own kitchen offering.  Innit also has plans to create their own consumer-facing branded app that will work with a variety of connected products.

For Whirlpool’s part, their relationship with Innit was viewed as part and parcel of a more exploratory phase of the market. With 2017 rolling around and the company viewing the market for connected kitchen products as more viable, it decided to more actively develop and expand their own connected product technology.  As one source told me, “if a startup can do with a few million dollars, why can’t the world’s biggest kitchen brand do it?”

Bottom line, this news is an indication of just how fast-moving and competitive the platform battle for the connected kitchen has become. With Innit back in the dating pool, Drop locking up two big partners and others like SideChef pursuing big kitchen brands, the market for independent third party platforms likely will only get more competitive throughout 2017. One big unknown is how Whirlpool’s decision to largely focus on developing their own platform for Whirlpool branded products might influence other large kitchen brands who have yet to really develop connected kitchen strategies. It also is a sign that we might see some of the same fragmentation that plagued the smart home in recent years, a market which suffered as many big players pursued their own non-interoperable platform efforts.

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Drop’s Recipe App Platform Now Will Control GE Wi-Fi Ovens

Drop isn’t wasting time transforming itself into a recipe platform for connected appliances.

In the space of three months, the company has announced its second major appliance manufacturer win with GE, who the company announced would adopt its recipe platform with GE’s Wi-Fi enabled ovens. This news follows their September announcement of a partnership with Bosch to power a similar control of settings like temperature from within their recipe app.

For GE, who is taking a fairly open approach with their Wi-Fi product lineup, it’s another of a growing list of partners. They’ve also integrated with IFTTT as well ad added an Alexa skill by the name of Geneva that connects with 70 GE Wi-Fi connected appliances. Since the company’s acquisition (in June Chinese company Haier acquired the appliance division from General Electric), they have been extremely aggressive in adding new capabilities.

Drop continues to make a smooth transition from a company that makes consumer hardware (their first product was the Drop smart scale) to a platform company. The “kitchen guidance” platform space is looking to heat up in 2017, with Innit, Drop, SideChef and others continuing to partner and grow capabilities.

Podcast: SKS16 Sessions – The Kitchen Operating System

This podcast is the audio from a session at the Smart Kitchen Summit called the Kitchen OS: Bridging Islands in the Connected Kitchen.

The panelists include:

  • Moderator – Michael Wolf (host of the Smart Kitchen Show)
  • Kevin Brown, CEO, Innit
  • Charlotte Skidmore, Director of Energy & Environmental Policy, Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers
  • Ben Harris, CEO, Drop

The panel description was as follows: ‘Today’s smart kitchen is a series of disparate platforms and experiences. Can technology help us bridge shopping, discovery, storage, prep and cooking? A discussion of creating a common ‘smart kitchen stack’.’