Lian Li’s UNI fans have been quite popular due to their simple daisy-chain connectivity, I even used them a year or so ago but dropped due to experiencing too many issues with power and RGB. Today some news has come forward that Lian Li has sued Phanteks over a patent infringement surrounding this daisy-chain technology.
Lian Li Sues Phanteks
As reported by overclock3d, Phanteks was sent a letter by Lian Li back in May informing them that they had infringed upon their patent US 10,690,336 B1 which involves Lian Li’s daisy-chainable fan connection. The infringement involves Phanteks D30 fans which Lian Li claims infringes on their patent for daisy chainable fans which are shown in the image below from the UNI Fan SL product page.
Phanteks D30 fans feature a similar daisy chain system that involves a cable connection similar to Lian Li’s but then requires separate clips to connect further fans which is overall different to Lian Li’s system. The photo below from the Glacier One manual shows the system.
Does This Actually Have Ground?
Now I’m not a lawyer or an expert on anything to do with patents but this seems like a bit of a push. Whilst the system is similar it isn’t the same and brings in the question of whether Lian Li has created a patent that covers all daisy chain connection designs, if so that would be quite disappointing. For now we’ll have to see how this lawsuit plays out before we can know if Lian Li have control over all daisy chain options.
