Thermaltake sinks to a whole new level at Computex 2015

Thermaltake has been around for a long time in the PC industry.  Longer than I can even remember.  It’s also been a while since I’ve wanted to buy one of their products simply because the products seem to be a commodity item and not unique or innovative anymore.

At CES in Jaunary Thermaltake’s big news was launching a whole new set of water cooling components – we’ll get to those a bit later.  But at Computex Thermaltake launched a bunch of new cases that seemed oddly familiar.  This may not be too much of a surprise to those of you who are familiar with CaseLabs Mercury Cases and Thermaltake’s Core X series.  While the Core X was heavily inspired by CaseLabs and stole a ton of features and ideas it wasn’t an exact copy.  They made it compatible with 480 rads for example and made the drive bays less useful.  There were some signs of pure lazyness in what they did copy – for example even the pattern of the grills in the back of the case and the panels are exactly the same.

While it was obvious to anyone familiar with both cases that a lot of ideas were stolen there were at least some differences that meant that Thermaltake were able to convince many that their cases was unique.

Since then (and possibly because they weren’t sued) the “inspiration” has gone further.  Recently Thermaltake also launched the F51 Supressor:

This case was eerily similar to Fractal Design’s Define case:

Now at Computex they copied some of the other more popular cases from CaseLabs which frustrated Kevin at CaseLabs so much that he posted his experience of talking with Thermaltake and how this was not an accident but coldly calculated:

“Fellow enthusiasts and case modders,

For those who know me, you know I am not a person to create drama. Nor am I a person to be dishonest, or try to slander someone out of spite. With that being said I can no longer hold my tongue about Shannon Robb “Case Designer” at Thermaltake. For those of you at Computex you may know what I’m talking about… Thermaltake has just announced their “new” case line last night, the “new TT premium line W series extreme chassis”. It is more than evident this is a stolen concept. Not only did Shannon clone our Mercury line, with his Core line, but now they have stolen our MAGNUM and Merlin designs as well.

Sit back, here is how the story goes…

Back in July of 2013 we exhibited at PDXLAN 22 with 2 of our Merlin SM8 cases which we gave away (Matt Conwell hooked us up, and I must say he is an awesome person.). At this event people for the first time got to see us with one of our cases in person. We didn’t have a booth, but we got so much good feedback we decided to come back for PDXLAN 23, but this time as an official sponsor of the event. We got a booth and we brought a bunch of different cases to show off including the Mercury case line (S3, S5 and S8). It was at this time we found out Thermaltake was a major sponsor if this event (and have been) and their case designer, Shannon, was in attendance (as he usually is). Shannon was introduced to my dad (CL owner) and I via a mutual friend. Shannon then proceeded to tell us how much he liked our cases, and he was a big fan. He seemed very genuine, and overall a nice person. He started asking us about our cases and said, “Wow I wish our company made cases like this, can I take some pictures to send to our R&D department?” A bit flabbergasted I told him no which he then replied, “Well I guess we will just buy one then.” I was a little put off, but whatever. I shrugged it off, and kept talking to him about the cases. Oh and I almost forgot… Thermaltake did buy one of our cases back in September of the 2013, just 2 months after we showed off the Merlin SM8 for the first time. I guess he wasn’t kidding when he said he would just buy a case…

Next event, PDXLAN 24. We had a Mercury S3 we brought with us for Sapphire. They liked the fact that it was horizontal with a window on the side so they could show off their GPU. Thermaltake, AKA Shannon, gave Sapphire an AIO 240 cooler for the build and helped them build the case at the event. Once the case was up a running, Shannon came over to our booth and shook my dad’s hand. He said, “That was such a great case to build in, nice work!” Well my dad felt very gratified knowing another manufacture was giving him praise for his design. We also brought with us our new prototype, the X2… then this is where it all turned ugly…

PDXLAN 25. Thermaltake announces the Core case line, the X1, X2 and X9 cases. The cases feature a modular design, horizontal mobo cube style, windows on both sides, drop-in radiator mounts, stackable, mITX, mATX and ATX form factors and a ventilation pattern identical to all of our cases. These features ALL are part of the Mercury line which we brought with us just 1 year ago, and what he built in 6 months prior. Funny it takes companies about a year to release new product, right? We knew about the cases before the event, but we kept our cool. My dad even went as far to speak to Shannon and ask him how he was doing. I kept pretty quiet. Shannon told my dad, “The new line was doing very well and hoped that one day he would make cases as good as ours. They were not there yet, but it was his main objective while working there.”

Computex 2015… Shannon was thrilled to announce “My new babies have arrived!” on Facebook. I was fortunate enough to see this late at night so I had plenty to keep me from sleeping well (actually not at all really, yay for coffee!). I also received several notices from people at the event telling me that Thermaltake had ripped us off yet again.

All of these events happened, and I did not make up anything, not a thing. Simply put, Shannon and Thermaltake, you disgust me. We are all for innovation, and welcome new case concepts from other manufactures. We have said this publicly and I’m saying it again. There have been some AMAZGING things to happen to the enthusiast market, and it’s better for everyone. Copying people’s existing concepts and calling them your own stifles innovation and hurts the industry with dull already done designs. We are a small family owned and operated business who make their products in the USA with pride. Anyone can steal designs and have them made overseas for much much less. So do something with your own creativity and concepts or do nothing at all.

Shannon if you read this and I hope you do. The only reason I became friends with you on Facebook was because my dad genuinely believed you were a good guy and that I should give you a chance. That’s why you may have noticed I sent you a friend request after you sent me one. I had deleted your request, and after speaking to my dad I sent you one, and voila, we became “friends”. I feel a bit “high school” adding this part, but I wanted you to know that.

For all who have read this, thank you for taking the time. We have worked tirelessly on our designs and can’t just sit back while people rip us off. I am asking everyone to share this post. Please, it needs to be done or businesses like Thermaltake will continue to taint the industry with rip-off products. To all of you who noticed the stolen concepts and took the time to tell us, thank you your support means the world to us.

Best Regards,

Kevin Keating
CaseLabs Vice President”

He also provided some side by side photos of the cases as well as a photo of the order place by Thermaltake:

Clearly again the similarities are extremely clear.  Yes there are some differences – the smaller panels are on hinges – and the pedestal fronts match up with the front of the case rather than having a central flexbay, but essentially all the details particularly in construction seem to be way too similar to be dismissed as anything more than a blatent copy.  As we are not at Computex we can’t take our detailed pictures, but this video shows a lot of the details that anyone who is familiar with CaseLabs will recognize.

Shannon addressed the issue on his facebook page with the following statement:

So as we have seen some of these claims are simply silly – “fitment and functionality” are clearly the same.  “Scalability and modularity” on these cases is indeed awesome – because they were on the cases they were copied from.  It’s the reason ThermalTake wanted to copy the design in the first place.

Yes many companies get inspired by other’s ideas, and some of those ideas are accepted as ok to steal.  Who designed the first drive bay or modular power supply for example?  Companies like Microsoft and Apple wouldn’t be here without copying a few ideas now and again.  But this is beyond inspiration.  It’s not a perfect clone, but it’s about as close as you can get – and this isn’t a one time instance.  The fact that they even copied the style of the cases which in my opinion is the weakest part of the CaseLabs designs shows how little thought they put into this.  Thermaltake could have at least taken the ideas and done something different with the outside.  But this is a clear pattern of copying ideas that have been succesful while doing the bare minimum to avoid getting sued.  As times goes by they have gotten bolder.  Let’s go back to talk about those water cooling components that they launched at CES and see if those are familiar in anyway:

Thermaltake’s CPU block looks exactly like Swiftechs.  So much so that I assumed they had licensed the design from them.  Now I wonder if they licensed it or simply copied it.  I’ve sent a question to Swiftech to confirm.  In addition their QDC’s are the same as Swiftech:

Next up are the fittings – Bitspower are the most popular and respected style of fitting and here we see the same design with the addition of a tool slot on the barb (same as Monsoon):

The rotary adapters this time seem to have been influenced by EK:

I’m not sure why because the EK ones are quite ugly.  The Thermaltake GPU bridge is also familiar – though they seem to be relying on a startling few amount of screws to secure it:

Then there’s the D5 pump and reservoir which reminds us of Bitspower:

And the details of the D5 top with dress kit seem very similar to Bitspower’s too:

Then there’s the GPU block – this one is a bit tenuous and that’s because Thermaltake screwed it up:

If they were copying this old EK block in terms of the port connections then it was the worst one to copy as these connection points were the worst and thankfully got replaced later on.  Interestingly Thermaltake also messed up the VRM cooling.  Instead of a full cover block that cools the whole PCB they simply didn’t cool the VRMs and left some slots for them to be air cooled:

This gives credence to TT not copying *everything* because if they had simply copied them they wouldn’t have messed it up so badly.  You almost wonder if they did it deliberately so they could point at something and say “look we didn’t copy this”.

In other words as far as I can tell Thermaltake has lost the ability to launch any good products without it being a copy of someone else’s work.  They are systematically waiting for other companies to take the risk and when they see it pan out then they clone it.  While some larger companies will simply keep innovating and moving on the effects are far great on smaller companies of which plenty exist in the world of watercooling.  CaseLabs is a small family business that have risked much and worked for years to establish themselves and their ideas as something different.  They’ve worked with and supported the enthusiast community and so it’s important that that same community knows what Thermaltake is doing so that they don’t accidentally buy a great case from someone who simply stole the design.

Rewarding innovation leads to more innovation while rewarding copying simply stifles innovation.  When Corsair got scared/inspired by CaseLabs they launched the 900D – while it was similar in some aspects to the SMH10 it was also very different and unique in its own ways.  Thermaltake seem to have chosen to take another path and now the onus is on them to prove these claims to be wrong or to lose any remaining respect from the community.

Feel free to share your own opinions, or harass TT on twitter or facebook for an answer.