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Tech Giants Form “Allied Security Trust” to Guard against Patent Lawsuits

A number of major telecommunications and technology companies have pooled their resources to form the “Allied Security Trust” (AST), in an attempt to curb costly patent lawsuits.

So far, the AST includes Cisco Systems, Ericsson, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, Sun Microsystems, and Verizon Communications. The group will collectively purchase patents that may otherwise be used against against its members in patent infringement lawsuits.

“The Trust was formed in reaction to a marked increase in patent assertions and litigation involving high tech companies by patent holding companies … also known as “patent trolls,” the AST said in a statement. “These organizations produce no products or services of their own, and acquire patents, sometimes hundreds of them, with the sole intention of asserting them against operating companies and conducting patent litigation to extract settlements or licensing fees.”

It was one such organization, NTP Inc., which successfully sued Research In Motion Ltd. (maker of the popular BlackBerry smartphone), forcing it to pay patent infringement damages of $612.5 million in early 2006.

The AST aims to act as a sort of insurance policy, reaching small, out-of-court settlements with patent holding companies, so as to avoid the hassle and crippling expense of multi-year intellectual property trials.

“Even a small claim is highly disruptive and requires significant time and legal costs to defend,” the AST statement explained. “Often, it is less expensive to settle for a smaller amount than is being sought, even when an operating company knows that it would eventually win.”

http://www.teleclick.ca/2008/07/tech-giants-form-allied-security-trust-to-guard-against-patent-lawsuits/

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