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The group - called the Allied Security Trust - plans to buy up key intellectual property before it falls into the hands of parties that could use it against them.

Members of the alliance include HP, Cisco, Ericsson and Verizon, as well as the web search giant Google.

The companies will pay roughly $250,000 to join the group and will each put about $5 million into the organisation to go toward future patent purchases, according to reports.

Patent claims are a costly business for the tech giants. Google, for example, was sued for $5bn by a small firm called Rates Technology back in 2006, after it claimed patent infringement for the VoIP technology that underpins Google Talk.

Even if the court cases are without merit, it can cost the companies hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal fees just to defend themselves.