Today, we learn that Cooler Master has initiated legal action (lawsuit) against manufacturers SilverStone, Enermax, and their OEM liquid cooling manufacturer, Apaltek. Specifically, the Chinese manufacturer is accused of allegedly infringing on intellectual property rights in the design of their All in One (AIO) CLC liquid cooling systems. To be more precise, this is a lawsuit for alleged patent infringement.
Cooler Master has filed a lawsuit with the United States District Court, in the Central District of California, against the three companies. Cooler Master claims that the three companies violate U.S. Patent Nos. 10,509,446; 11,061,450; and D856,941, which it owns.
These are the products affected by Cooler Master’s patent infringement:
On one hand, we have the SilverStone IceMyst 240, PF240, PF240W, IceGem 360, VIDA 240 Slim, and RGB Controller liquid cooling systems. On the other hand, we have Enermax’s Aquafusion ADV, Liqmax III ARGB, Liqtech 360 TR4 II Slim, and RGB Controller liquid coolers. While Apaltek does not have any products under its own brand, it has also been sued, as it manufactures the liquid cooling systems for SilverStone and Enermax.
To be more precise, Cooler Master claims that the choice of design to integrate the water pump inside the radiator is an invention of Cooler Master. It also indicates that another alleged patent infringement is related to the mini controller for the ARGB LED lighting. The last patent is related to “the essential design of cooling systems,” a very generic piece of data that does not provide any relevant details.
One of the brands gave their opinion on this lawsuit:
TechPowerUp has revealed that one of the three defendant companies, which remained anonymous, commented on this patent infringement lawsuit filed by Cooler Master. This company indicates that it is quite curious that the lawsuit has only been filed against Enermax and SilverStone, “smaller competitors.” However, Apaltek has other much more significant and important clients such as MSI, with which no legal action has been taken.
Adding to this, Cooler Master defended a similar patent infringement lawsuit against Asetek in 2015 and 2016. But now, it is acting as a “bully” claiming patent infringement against smaller competitors. This unknown company asserted that they intend to defend the designs of their liquid cooling systems in court. As a minor detail, Cooler Master lost the lawsuit against Asetek.
In 2015, Asetek managed to ban the sale of all liquid cooling systems that used its patent in the United States. By the end of 2017, Cooler Master had to pay a fine of around $600,000 (€553,000), specifically 14.5% of the profits obtained through the sale of these coolers since 2012. So, this lawsuit will be closely scrutinized. However, we will likely have to wait several months, at least, to find out how this story ends.
The post Cooler Master sues SilverStone, Enermax, and Apaltek for infringing on its AIO liquid cooling patent first appears on El Chapuzas Informático.
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