Liquid cooling specialist Asetek is looking to capitalise on its recent legal victory against rival Cooler Master with an ultimatum to AMD: cease sales of the Radeon R9 Fury X graphics card, or face the consequences.
Asetek brought a suit against rival Cooler Master
back in March 2013, claiming that the company's Seidon all-in-one liquid cooling products were infringing two Asetek-held patents:
US Patent 8245764 and
US Patent 8240362. In December 2014, a court
ruled in favour of Asetek, confirming that the Seidon family violated the company's patents and ruling that the company must pay damages of $404,941 on a 14.5 per cent royalty rate.
Now, though, Asetek has a bigger company in its sights: AMD. According to a statement sent late last week to
Gamers Nexus, Asetek has claimed that the Radeon R9 Fury X graphics card, supplied with a pre-installed a Cooler Master all-in-one liquid cooling system, is produced in violation of the same patents upheld in the Cooler Master case. As a result, the company has told AMD to cease sales of the cards - likely as a pressure tactic to encourage an out-of-court settlement and back-dated royalty payments. A letter has also been sent to Gigabyte over its GeForce GTX 980 Water Force graphics card, which also bundles the infringing Cooler Master Seidon 120M.
AMD has not yet issued a statement on Asetek's demands.
UPDATE 2015-12-10:
AMD has issued a short statement, which reads: '
We are aware that Asetek has sued Cooler Master. While we defer to Cooler Master regarding the details of the litigation, we understand that the jury in that case did not find that the Cooler Master heat sink currently used with the Radeon Fury X infringed any of Asetek's patents.'
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