Cooler Master Closed-Loop Coolers To Be Pulled From U.S. Market
In December 2014, Asetek won a case against Cooler Master Incorporated that awarded Asetek $404,941 in damage, which represented a 14.5 percent royalty fee on all sales of Cooler Master-branded closed-loop water cooling units that use a cold plate mounted pump from 2012 until the date of the judgement. Cooler Master appealed that decision, but the result of that effort was not a pretty one for the company.
On September 23, the court again sided with Asetek and denied Cooler Master's demands. Not only did the ruling remain in Asetek's favor, the court increased the fine from 14.5 percent to 25.735 percent on all sales from January 1, 2015 and later. Additionally, the court issued a permanent injunction barring Cooler Master from selling closed-loop coolers that use a pump mounted on top of a cold plate in the United States.
Cooler Master has the option of appealing the decision, but when pressed for comment, the company declined to say whether it would do so or not. The company also declined to provide a list of affected products at this time.
An interesting twist in this story could be bad news for AMD. Cooler Master is the company behind the closed loop cooler installed in the Radeon R9 Fury X reference cooling solution. Cooler Master was not willing to confirm or deny if this cooler will be affected.
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Kevin Carbotte is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware who primarily covers VR and AR hardware. He has been writing for us for more than four years.
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tslot05qsljgo9ed ReplyBoy, AMD is really getting reamed from all angles in recent years, innit?
As usual this problem was brought on by AMD itself.
The article states "In December 2014, Asetek won a case against Cooler Master Incorporated'. So AMD should have been aware that using Cooler Master infringing water coolers may result in a ban.
This is just one of many examples of AMD shooting itself in the foot. -
gilbadon Asetek is the biggest group of patent trolls... First Swiftech and now cooler master. Monopoly on all of the AIO systems.Reply -
gilbadon AMD can still sell the cards and Cooler Master will not have to stop making the cooler for them as once it is in the AMD card it is an AMD product. However, AMD can suffer the same loss as Cooler Master if asetek pleases.Reply -
jimmysmitty Reply16683348 said:AMD still have Fury(non-X) and Fury Nano.
But Fury is not competitive with the GTX 980Ti and Nano is a niche market product.
16683568 said:AMD can still sell the cards and Cooler Master will not have to stop making the cooler for them as once it is in the AMD card it is an AMD product. However, AMD can suffer the same loss as Cooler Master if asetek pleases.
I am not quite sure that is how it works. because they have to sell them to a US company, CM will probably not be able to sell the products to AMD (if this unit is affected). They can try to get around it and that would just end them up in even more trouble. -
gilbadon Reply16683577 said:
I am not quite sure that is how it works. because they have to sell them to a US company, CM will probably not be able to sell the products to AMD (if this unit is affected). They can try to get around it and that would just end them up in even more trouble.
True, I guess it depends on whether they are selling them full units or giving AMD "parts" to build their full unit. If not sold as full unit's, they will be considered AMD property (at least that is how my work treats it with the FDA). -
jhanschu I'm not sure but if the patent they're using is only CPU specific, then there may not even be an issue. I don't believe that Asetek make dedicated GPU coolers. In the case of the Fury X there's very little probably that cooler design could be used for a CPU.Reply -
jimmysmitty Reply16684030 said:I'm not sure but if the patent they're using is only CPU specific, then there may not even be an issue. I don't believe that Asetek make dedicated GPU coolers. In the case of the Fury X there's very little probably that cooler design could be used for a CPU.
http://www.asetek.com/desktop/gpu-combo-coolers/740gn/
The only difference would be in the mounting bracket which needs to be designed to fit on a GPU instead of a CPU, so make it touch the GPU ad they have different thickness from the PCB to the top of the die (GPUs don't normally use a face plate).
Even if Asetek didn't make a GPU cooler the technology has nothing to do with just CPUs. It is how the pump sits on a AiO cooler.