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Caselabs Apologizes to Thermaltake

'47 Knucklehead

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Well, this certainly is an interesting turn of events. Can't say I'm at all surprised, especially since Caselabs didn't have a leg to stand on and has basically directly and indirectly slandered and libeled Thermaltake left and right (not to mention violated their customer confidentiality by showing/sharing various information that shouldn't be, for example, invoices). Seem that a copy of video bloggers are likewise taking down their comments, which are completely untrue ... like how TT stole the design of what is in actuality, a legally licensed waterblock, from Swiftech.

Anyway, without further personal comment ...


Caselabs Apologizes to Thermaltake


CaseLabs_Apology_Retraction_Letter.jpg


CaseLabs_Letter_to_Legit_Reviews.jpg




Kenny Lin, CEO of Thermaltake, responded to CaseLabs’ retraction and apology letter with the following quote:

“Thermaltake appreciates CaseLabs’ retraction and apology for its false accusations against Thermaltake. Having received this apology from CaseLabs, Thermaltake hopes that our two businesses can return to healthy competition in the marketplace, without resort to name-calling or false representations. Thermaltake will continue to compete vigorously in the always competitive computer peripherals market, where Thermaltake will continue to work closely with consumers to observe their behavior and to respond to their needs. Thermaltake’s products are user driven. Thermaltake is dedicated to building aesthetic and high quality products which will greatly improve system performance and bring the user to his or her highest potential. Thermaltake is proud of its IP portfolio, including patents and trademarks, and exceptional product lines, but most of all, we are proud of the customers we serve and of our personnel who serve them.”
 

SKYMTL

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Honestly, what did people expect? Hence why folks in this industry with a shred a journalistic integrity either explained the situation in detail without taking sides or remained on the sidelines.

Once again the rush for pageviews offered up impartiality on the sacrificial altar.
 

'47 Knucklehead

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Honestly, what did people expect? Hence why folks in this industry with a shred a journalistic integrity either explained the situation in detail without taking sides or remained on the sidelines.

Once again the rush for pageviews offered up impartiality on the sacrificial altar.


I agree. There has been so much bias and stupidity made over this whole mess it isn't even funny. To me, the person I lost the most respect for out of this is Jayztwocents. He basically said he will never even review a TT product. The man never owned a single TT product and even turned away free products from them to review when the W-series case issue started. All that from 2nd and 3rd hand photos and comments made by other reviewers who never saw the W-series case. And in one case, one of the reviewers that Jay was using was such an idiot, the said that TT ripped off and blatantly copied the Swiftech CPU block. Come to find out, TT *legally licensed* the design from Swiftech.

Honestly, with the exception of Linus, even reviewers here at HC jumped onto the bandwagon on this and made a video where for 15+ minutes they slandered TT left and right. (Edit: I may be wrong, maybe it was PCPer, but I could of sworn it was HC, who did a video, not a review, where everyone was basically blasting TT and calling them Thermalfake, etc.)

I just hope that there will be a ton of retraction videos and people who are supposed to be unbiased, actually do their jobs.

Integrity, like honesty, takes a second to destroy, but a lifetime to rebuild.
 

Dzzope

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Linus did too.. he explained very calmly that you can't copyright a box but he said basically it's a rip off of it.. it's just too similar.. But that it's nothing new especially in the case sector and there is no reason to be butt-hurt over it.. end of the there are only so many ways to make a box.
Personally I find the corsair Air series to be very similar too.. But I really don't care.. i'll pick the best combination of price-performance-features and aesthetics.

Imitation is the highest form of flattery after all.
 

FreeKnight

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Honestly, with the exception of Linus, even reviewers here at HC jumped onto the bandwagon on this and made a video where for 15+ minutes they slandered TT left and right. (Edit: I may be wrong, maybe it was PCPer, but I could of sworn it was HC, who did a video, not a review, where everyone was basically blasting TT and calling them Thermalfake, etc.).

Uhh, are you sure about that. I'm pretty sure Linus isn't an HWC reviewer, he's got his own site and I've never seen a review written by him here (unless maybe he wrote a couple reeeaaallly early ones). I didn't see a video like that here, and the worst staff comment I can remember was AkG saying that they've had lots of 'mimic' products over the years (or something along those lines).

I still think that one case is a bit of a Fractal rip-off. It's silly to talk about patent lawsuits and their cost when you don't even have patents for a product/field (and I'm not really sure how much stuff on a computer case you could really patent without dropping to cell phone levels of patent trolling).

Overall I still have the same opinion of TT products that I did before this all happened. I think they're kind of cheap and plastic-y, and I'm not really interested in them. Of course a really solid case with great features could change my mind (or at least I'd think highly of the one model)
 

'47 Knucklehead

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I take exception to that. We took a TOTALLY neutral and analytical approach to this fiasco:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVLFOWbpjRw


No, no, no ... that video was TOTALLY objective and informative. You guys did a great job with that video. You actually saw the cases and did your research and got both sides of the story.


I'm talking about another video, and I may be wrong, I could have sworn it had some HC people in it and was more of a group blog. I can't find that one right now. I know it's in my history on my home computers, so I can't get access to it now.

Again, it may NOT be a HC video, but I could of sworn it was.

But no, the video you linked to was 100% fair and well done. :punk:
 

SKYMTL

HardwareCanuck Review Editor
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100% it wasn't an HWC video or blog. I have our history here and I don't see anything referring to Thermaltake's supposed "copying" in my searches other than that one video.

Anyways, one way or another, I don't think this subject of copying will go away quietly...even after the apology.
 

dARqSyDE

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Oct 5, 2012
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Ontario
I believe, given the specific language of the letter, that Caselabs realized they goofed in calling out Thermaltake. Without trademarking/copyrighting(w/e...) the external aesthetic design of the cases, no case maker has ANY way to take legal action against another. As for patenting the functional(mostly internal) aspects of the cases, that would lead to a ridiculous amount of suits and counter-suits between virtually all the case designers on the planet.

So, while Thermaltake may have released cases that bear a striking resemblance to other makers designs, there is basically no way anybody could take any form of legal action.
 

Hooded

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Dec 1, 2012
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Bowmanville,Ontario
I think the apology was the correct thing for Caselabs to do.
Still I also think that was also right move for Thermaltake to pull the W series cases from production, and is also taking a step back and rethinking some of they're design ideas. Which is hopefully is a win all round.
 

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