She may not say anything to you, but the Danish brand Asetek is largely responsible for the lack of diversity on the AIO Watercooling solutions market. We explain how reason for you … and why it could soon change.
It’s time “Did you know?” This first week of May. The thing is not necessarily known, and it was not of your servant before the writing of this article, but if most of the AIO watercooling devices are more or less based on the same design (regardless of the brand or the model chosen), it is actually because of a patent filed on May 6, 2005 by the Danish brand Asetek.
Entitled “PCT/DK2005/000310” or “US8240362”, recalls Heise onlinethe latter describes a thermal dissipator for processor, with integrated pump, devoted to all-in-one water cooling systems. It is this patent, tabled 20 years ago today, which has previously conditioned the vast majority of watercooling designs AIO … for a simple legal reason.
A design to govern them all
As a holder of this patent, Asetek regularly brought to trials to manufacturers of AIO solutions seeking to market an all-in-one device too close to its original design-therefore reducing the room for maneuver that many manufacturers allowed themselves to have. Most of them simply preferred to pay rights to Asetek to decline his design almost identically without risking legal action.
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As emphasizes Heise onlinesome manufacturers have nevertheless attempted the creation of their own designs, by bypassing that of Asetek. How ? By placing for example the water pump and the cooling plate in two different bedrooms inside the same radiator case.
-This is particularly the case with a handful of models at EK Water or Alphacool, underlines the specialized media, which also recalls the agreement reached in the past between Asetek and the Coolit Canadian. The latter remains one of the few to have reached an amicable agreement with Asetek for the use of the same design idea.
Asetek reigned without sharing … until today?
These few examples are nevertheless minority on the market. Anxious to protect its design, Asetek has tended to drag the manufacturers a little too adventurous fairly easily. This situation has ended up harming innovation, but it could little by little change.
The patent filed two decades ago by Asetek, and jealously protected since then, has indeed arrived on its expiration date.
The expiration of this patent could therefore encourage the AIO Watercooling manufacturers to be daring. This could lead to the emergence of new designs.
We also learned last month, on the occasion of the sharing of the latest quarterly results of Asetek, that the brand would have been approached by a competitor for the acquisition of its division dedicated to watercooling, and that several tracks of partnerships would also be envisaged.
In a word: the little world of AIO Watercooling could therefore be brought to evolve in the coming years.
