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High-end water coolers take become popular at the height of the graphics card market place in recent years, merely a recent lawsuit victory for Asetek could spell problem for companies similar AMD and Gigabyte. In tardily September, Asetek won a patent infringement lawsuit against CoolerMaster. The judgment hinged on CM's use of a cooling pump mounted straight to a common cold plate, which was found to violate Asetek'southward patents.

CoolerMaster isn't the only visitor potentially caught by this issue, but it provides cooling solutions to a number of companies, including Gigabyte and AMD. The visitor has been slugged with a hefty fine for violating Asetek's patent, and must pay Asetek a 23.375% royalty rate on all infringing products sold since Jan 1, 2022. Now, GamerNexus reports that Asetek has sent finish-and-desist messages to both Gigabyte and AMD, demanding that the manufacturers finish selling the WaterForce brand of GTX 980 products and the Fury X, respectively.

Asetek plainly has no plans to achieve an understanding with CoolerMaster. The company's statement is reprinted beneath:

"There is no licensing agreement in identify with Cooler Principal, nor do we plan to offer any in the foreseeable future. Asetek sued Cooler Primary and CMI USA, Inc. (Cooler Chief's United states affiliate) for infringement of Asetek's U.s.a. Patent Nos. 8,240,362 and 8,245,764, and the jury found that the Cooler Master products at issue borrow Asetek's patents and awarded damages to Asetek. The estimate also entered an injunction prohibiting Cooler Master and CMI USA from importing or selling the defendant products in the US, and the approximate awarded enhanced damages because of continued sales after the jury's verdict. The injunction states '[a]s used herein, Infringing Products shall mean the following Cooler Master products: Seidon 120M, Seidon 120XL, Seidon 240M, Seidon 120V, Seidon 120V Plus, Nepton 140XL, [Nepton 280L], Glacer 240L, and products non more than than colorably different from them."

RadeonFury1

AMD'southward Fury 10 uses a CoolerMaster rather than an Asetek libation.

Cease-and-desist letters tin be intimidating, just we'd be stunned if Asetek actually won an injunction against either AMD or Gigabyte. Tactics like this are designed to bring companies to the negotiating table — Asetek is likely hoping to recoup a percentage of the sales of CoolerMaster products.

We reached out to AMD, which provided u.s. with the following argument:

"We are enlightened that Asetek has sued Libation Master. While we defer to Libation Master regarding the details of the litigation, we understand that the jury in that case did not detect that the Cooler Master heat sink currently used with the Radeon Fury Ten infringed any of Asetek'due south patents."

AMD has previously used Asetek hardware for the R9 295X2, then we'll have to wait and see how this plays out. The chance of a meaningful disruption to Fury X sales, however, is quite low.