14 DAY TRIAL // It seems the IT industry can't go even one day without enterprises of all shapes and sizes suing each other for whatever reasons. This time around, it's not about Intel and AMD, as those folks seem to have cooled down, at least for a little while. No, this time, in the fray of accusations is not one but three different companies, namely Hewlett-Packard, Sapphire and Microloops. The accusations were filed by Convergence Technologies, with the claim being an infringement and inducement to infringe on the latter's patent #7,422,053 regarding vapor chamber cooling. Hong Kong-based Convergence Technologies recently lost a similar case against Microloops that was dismissed by the Taiwanese court.
"With the recent Taiwan court's ruling and Microloops' predatory pricing practice, we have no choice but to now turn to the U.S. court for protection," Dr. Steven H. Lee, founding president & CEO of Convergence Technologies Limited, said. "It is unfortunate that venture capital was scarce in Hong Kong, which gave other companies the opportunity to exploit our weakness, but we have the best vapor chamber technology in the world, and Joe Zito [Joseph Zito of ZITO tlp is Convergence's lead litigator] will help us ensure this technology reaches the market place."
Although whether the infringement truly occurred or not, the fact that the technology, however unclear, may have been copied is an indicator that Convergence might actually have developed good cooling methods. This wasn't the opinion of the judge who dealt with the previous case, though. Taiwan ruled against Convergence on the premise that the company's patent lacked novelty and inventiveness.
This second try, this time in a US court, has it claiming that the aforementioned companies infringed its patent pertaining to vapor chamber cooling. Part of the discontent is due to the fact that, Lee says, many US companies aren't even aware of the fact that they are being sold Microloops products, because they are shipped through various OEMs, ODMs and distributors.
Convergence claims that the technologies used in the cooling of several Sapphire card designs, as well as HP blade servers, were developed using certain critical components discovered by the claimant. Among these are a unique condensate flow requirement and a Multiwick structure, which offers the Convergence coolers' superior capabilities. The legal battle could grow in the future, seeing how Convergence may intend to file a similar claim against other companies using vapor chamber cooling.