Gadgetory

hey everyone i'm steve from gamers nexus donna and today we're talking about liquid cooler lawsuits this is an update on what we've written about previously on the website so bring everyone up to speed there's been a number of lawsuits involving primarily a Sutekh a supplier of clcs or closed loop liquid coolers and other companies like cooler master Swift tech and cool IT in particular so these companies have all been involved in some way or another legally with asa tech and just catching I've rona up what they all do is they all supply liquid coolers so the corsair coolers the NZXT coolers silverstone all of them are supplied by one of these companies or another one like a politic and those use very similar designs for the most part which ace attack holds a patent over so the design in question primarily pertains to the presence of the pump located on the cold blade so your CPU cooler for a liquid cooler you have a few items you have the cold plate at the bottom that's the piece of copper that connects to the CPU it has micro fins that go up into a basically mini reservoir where the pump resides the pump swirls of course has pumps do and propels liquid through those micro fins to dissipate heat the heated liquid then goes up a tube into the radiator gets cooled off by fans dissipated by the aluminum fins fed back down another tube and then it repeats the process so that's how it works and ASA tech holds a patent specifically over the cold plate mounted CPU or GPU pump design and that's where things start to get a bit out of control so in 2013 swiftech was issued ACN the cease-and-desist by asa tech and that was for the sale of their h220 liquid cooler in US markets in response to this swiftech ceased sales of their HT 20 cooler in the US markets but continued sales in other markets outside of the US following this more recently there was a cooler master lawsuit and cooler master law that lawsuit in 2014 at which point asa tech was awarded four hundred thousand dollars in damages and a 14.5 percent royalty on the sale of all relevant liquid coolers which would include the side on series the glacier series the Neptune series and similar liquid coolers following this there was a cool IT settlement so it did not go all the way through the channel like the cooler master one did cool IT reached a settlement with asa tech where they awarded a's attack some amount of cash for this cessation of their lawsuit and these lawsuits were both for the same reason they were both because ace tech was accusing coolermaster and cool IT of patent infringement on their design that we've gone over already and interestingly cooler master demanded a judgment on their ruling from 2014 which was ruled on by a jury and that was denied just recently as in yesterday or two days ago at this point and that was followed up by a hit to cooler master to the tune of a royalties increased to twenty-five percent or a bit over that 25 and some change for the continued sale of cooler master liquid coolers through the current date so basically bringing everyone up to speed on the relevant part coolermaster lost a lawsuit in 2014 and awarded a Sutekh damages for the infringement of their patent on liquid cooling and then demanded judgment was not awarded that and has been hit with an additional penalty for their continued sale of coolers at this point coolermaster now is twenty-five percent royalties on coolers sold from january first this year onward and they also are no longer allowed to sell their liquid coolers in US markets so that's where things get a bit interesting and that's because of the recent and the r9 fury x which uses a cooler master liquid cooler this cooler master liquid cooler in the r9 puri x is also a cold plate mounted pump and if you tear it all down it's pretty similar to a site on 120 liquid cool or other than the fact that it's square instead of a circle for the most part so that's where we're yet unsure if the lawsuit will impact the sale and production of AMD r9 fury X video cards but it is certainly a possibility there is no reason to be alarmist about it yet it's not all going down in flames or anything like that but it is a possibility for which we should all be at least paying attention if nothing else so that's where things stand with liquid coolers if you're curious about how this impact the greater liquid cooling market companies like a politic have not yet been roped into these legal battles and that company in particular supplies the silverstone Tundra the enermax lick max cooler which I actually have sitting right here and some lipa coolers and then there are other companies of course who also do the cold plate mounted pump design which could be called into question so that's sort of how things are working right now whether or not this patent is is something that is good for the industry is not something we're discussing in the video here today you are certainly free to debate that in the comments below but I will not be commenting on that at this time because I really need to inform myself a lot more from all the parties involved before I can comment on that in a manner that I determine adequate for a discussion but in terms of things that are interesting current and up for discussion on my end the AMD r9 px deserve some attention right now because the potential impact of the lawsuit coolermaster is getting hit with additional fines and already owes a lot of money the sale of their side on and similar cpu coolers will cease so if you want one you should get one soon if you're in the US and then finally and interestingly ASA Tech has expanded their patent acquisition they now hold patents in European and China markets as well previously was just the US so the inclusion of these markets could impact companies like Swift tech who have gotten away with selling their h220 in other regions outside of the US and may now have to reconsider that given the new patents acquired by isa tech so that's all for this content if you like this type of reporting as always check that patreon link in the post roll video and leave comments below let us know if you think we've got some other cool videos coming up very soon so subscribe to the channel if you're not already including some cooling stuff relevant to this but I'm not talking about the potentially boring industry legal side of things more talking on the performance so that's all for this time I'll see you all next time