Dutch judge invalidates Asetek watercooling patent in legal battle against Cooler Master

A Dutch court has invalidated one of Asetek's liquid cooling patents for lack of originality. The Danish company sought a sales ban of various liquid cooling products from Cooler Master, claiming the latter infringed on Asetek's European EP 1 923 771 patent. This includes the Cooler Master Nepton 120XL, Nepton 240M and Seidon 120V v2.

The patent in question was filed in November 2004 and was finally approved in May 2015. It's based on older Asetek patents that were filed in the US and it describes a basic watercooling system.

The Hague's court ruled that Cooler Master has a similar patent to Asetek's and invalidated the latter's patent claim. The judge accepted Cooler Master's argument about prior art and threw the case out. TechPowerUp reports Asetek now has to pay Cooler Master for their legal expenses:

However, The Hague's court has accepted Cooler Master's argument that they too have a similar patent to Asetek's, through a so-called "utility model" that already exists in China, which describes (and patents really show their problems here) the "operation of a water pumping engine device with chamber". The The Hague judge also invalidated Asetek's patent lawsuit on the basis that there was not enough inventiveness to it. Asetek and Cooler Master's legal battles aren't anything new; in 2015, a US-based court ordered Cooler Master to pay Asetek $600,000 for patent infringement. This time, it's the other way around, even though it was still Asetek that started the legal battle: the company now has to pay Cooler Master for their legal expenses, which amount to around €113,000 (~$134,204)