Asetek demands AMD suspend sales of Fury X, goes after Gigabyte

High-end water coolers have become popular at the top of the graphics card market in recent years, but a recent lawsuit victory for Asetek could spell trouble for companies like AMD and Gigabyte. In late September, Asetek won a patent infringement lawsuit against CoolerMaster. The judgment hinged on CM’s use of a cooling pump mounted directly to a cold plate, which was found to violate Asetek’s patents.
CoolerMaster isn’t the only company potentially caught by this issue, but it provides cooling solutions to a number of companies, including Gigabyte and AMD. The company 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 January 1, 2015. Now, GamerNexus reports that Asetek has sent cease-and-desist letters to both Gigabyte and AMD, demanding that the manufacturers cease selling the WaterForce brand of GTX 980 products and the Fury X, respectively.
Asetek apparently has no plans to reach an agreement with CoolerMaster. The company’s statement is reprinted below:

“There is no licensing agreement in place with Cooler Master, nor do we plan to offer any in the foreseeable future. Asetek sued Cooler Master and CMI USA, Inc. (Cooler Master’s US affiliate) for infringement of Asetek’s US Patent Nos. 8,240,362 and 8,245,764, and the jury found that the Cooler Master products at issue infringe Asetek’s patents and awarded damages to Asetek. The judge also entered an injunction prohibiting Cooler Master and CMI USA from importing or selling the accused products in the US, and the judge 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 not more than colorably different from them.”

AMD’s Fury X uses a CoolerMaster rather than an Asetek cooler.

Cease-and-desist letters can be intimidating, but 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 us with the following statement:

“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.”

AMD has previously used Asetek hardware for the R9 295X2, so 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.