WYP
News Guru
Lian Li claims that Phanteks has infringed on its patents.
Read more about Lian Li suing Phanteks for patent infringement.
Read more about Lian Li suing Phanteks for patent infringement.
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Lian Li sues Phanteks
- Thread starter WYP
- Start date
So Lian-li fans have pins and pads on the actual fan casing and the fans slide togheter making contact, Phanteks solution involves only pads in a completely different location on the fan casing and the fans are actually linked by an external clip that both makes the electrical contacts by carrying the pins and possibly cables or a PCB inside of them, and also keeps them together in a flimsy manner, but Phanteks is infringing on Lian-li's patent?
If that's true, that means Lian-li has patented daisy-chainable fans in any way shape or form, which would be sad...
If that's true, that means Lian-li has patented daisy-chainable fans in any way shape or form, which would be sad...
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Dawelio
Active member
Would kinda be like Asetek holds the patent for having the actual pump inside of the block itself. Hence why several other companies, like Be Quiet! for example, has putted the pump on the tubes themselves instead.
Yeah, but still there were other ways of doing it for AIO liquid coolers, which meant other companies could still compete. In this case it will turn out like when Cherry had the patent on mechanical keyboard switches, basically cherry was the single one able to produce the switches and monopolized the market, it's crazy to see how much mechanical keyboards have become cheap after the patent expired, if this lian li case holds up in court, it will mean daisy-chained fans will be extremelly expensive for the next decade at the very least.
I for one just wouldn't pay what lian-li asks for their daisy-chanable fans nor the other options curently on the market, I was waiting for the small chinese brands to catch up to it and force prices down, while I wouldn't buy from the small chinese brands (been there, they're good , but not good enough, noise was too high for my taste, even though they were technically not loud at all, and they mostly lack nice-to haves like 4-pin PWM for example, or they have proprietary RGB conector and controllers) but I'd probably buy a cheaper option from Deepcool for example, I'm currently using their FANs and coolers for everything in my systems and I'm very pleased with their noise, performance, price point and looks.
AlienALX
Well-known member
They haven't done that because of patent. In a water cooled rig the pump should always be the lowest thing in the loop. Certain companies are aware of this more than others (most don't care) but yeah, when you see an AIO with a pump that splits off it is because of that. There are plenty of ways to get around the patent as we see, loads of AIOs have a pump in the head (Like EK for example) that does not infringe any rights.
Recently I bought a TEC cooler.
The pump is its own entity. Not for patent, but because it needs to be the lowest thing in the loop. Especially when you go sub ambient like it does.
The main reason why they put the pump in the block in the first instance? vanity. Literally nothing else.
