In December 2014, Asetek won a case against Cooler Master Incorporated that awarded Asetek $404,941 in damage, which represented a 14.5 percent royalty fee on all sales of Cooler Master-branded closed-loop water cooling units that use a cold plate mounted pump from 2012 until the date of the judgement. Cooler Master appealed that decision, but the result of that effort was not a pretty one for the company.
On September 23, the court again sided with Asetek and denied Cooler Master’s demands. Not only did the ruling remain in Asetek’s favor, the court increased the fine from 14.5 percent to 25.735 percent on all sales from January 1, 2015 and later. Additionally, the court issued a permanent injunction barring Cooler Master from selling closed-loop coolers that use a pump mounted on top of a cold plate in the United States.
Cooler Master has the option of appealing the decision, but when pressed for comment, the company declined to say whether it would do so or not. The company also declined to provide a list of affected products at this time.
An interesting twist in this story could be bad news for AMD. Cooler Master is the company behind the closed loop cooler installed in the Radeon R9 Fury X reference cooling solution.At the time of the posting, it is unknown if this cooler will be affected.
