Cooler Master Sued by Asetek over Liquid Coolers

LG and Samsung may have ended their patent war, but the Apple-Samsung battle is still going strong, as are some others, which means that the IT industry already has enough of them.

Sadly, this did not prevent the start of yet another fight of this type, so we may be looking at another round of courtroom brawls, figuratively speaking.

Cooler Master is the defendant in the case filed by Asetek, who claims that the former infringes several of its patents with the Seidon line of closed-loop liquid cooler.

Closed-loop liquid coolers are more powerful alternatives to normal air coolers. They have a closer circuit through which a special coolant flows.

Said circuit involves a small reservoir, a radiator and a cold plate that goes on the CPU, or the GPU if it is for a video card.

As reported by eTeknix, Asetek says that the Seidon are made with technologies it owns, specifically the patents 8,240,362 and 8,245,764.

The case (Civil Action No. 3:13-cv-00457-JSC) was filed on January 31, 2013, and will be handled by a US court and its outcome will depend on Cooler Master's defense.

The company could argue the point that the fundamental design of CPU liquid coolers hasn't changed for decades, so Asetek should not be allowed the legal damages it seeks. If it fails, it might have to pay the plaintiff quite a lot of money.

For those who want the details of the matter, the two litigated patents are as follows:

8,240,362, “Cooling system for a computer system” by Eriksen, includes 19 claims (3 indep.). It was assigned to Asetek A/S, prosecuted by Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner LLP, and was application 12/826,768. It was filed on 6.30.2010 & granted on 8.14.2012.

8,245,764, “Cooling system for a computer system” by Eriksen, includes 18 claims (3 indep.). It was prosecuted by Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP., and had the application 13/269,234. It was granted on 8.21.2012.