Asetek took Cooler Master’s parent company CMI to court over patent infringement for its all-in-one liquid cooling units at the US District Court for the Northern district of California. The first ruling was done in the year 2014, but now the jury has favoured Asetek. As a result, Cooler Master will need to pay at a 14.5% royalty rate. During a post-trial motion, SMI demanded a retrial.
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Unfortunately for CMI, it backfired. As a result of retrial, the judge awarded Asetek of a 25.375% royalty rate on infringed products starting from January 1, 2015.
On September 23rd, the Court said the following:
The court yesterday denied CMI’s demands, and instead substantially followed Asetek’s requests and issued a permanent injunction barring CMI and its parent Cooler Master from selling certain infringing products into the Unites States.
Also, the judge awarded Asetek enhanced damages i.e., a 25.375% royalty rate, on CMI’s revenues for sales of infringing products beginning January 1, 2015.
It should be noted that the matter is appealable by CMI.Its currently unknown if CMI will ask for a re-trial again.
Cooler Master’s product are just not sold in retail, but also have an OEM division where they make products for certain companies. An AIO liquid coolers are used in AMD Radeon R9 FuryX graphic cards. Its unknown as of now how many of Cooler Master’s AIO units infringe on Asetek’s patents, but it would be interesting to see if CMI can appeal to lift the ban on the sale of its infringed products the United States in exchange for the royalty.
The post Asetek wins injunction against Cooler Master (again), gets more royalty appeared first on Hardware BBQ.
