Getting together on security
Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, Juniper Networks and Intel have set up the Industry Consortium for Advancement of Security on the Internet (ICASI) to counter evolving security threats such as stealth attacks that target multiple products simultaneously, or target shared protocols in multiple products.
The undeclared purpose of ICASI is presumably to pre-empt any attempt by governments to mandate collaboration along the lines discussed at the OECD Ministerial Meeting on the future of the internet economy, staged at Seoul on 17-18 June.
Out-bidding the patent trolls
Cisco is also involved in a joint initiative with Google, HP, Ericsson, Verizon and eight other so far unnamed major IT companies, believed to involve paying $250,000 each to join the Allied Security Trust (AST), and a further $5 million each into a fund to purchase technology patents.
AST was formed in 2007 to buy patents in which member companies express a common interest, and to sell them back into the market. It was formed in response to the rising cost of litigation involving patent holding companies known as “patent trolls,” such as NTP, which took Research in Motion, the maker of Blackberry, for $612 million in March 2006.
The idea is to put the patent trolls out of business by outbidding them. Good news for individual patent holders, certainly, but leaving unresolved the major problem of lawsuits brought by those claiming patent on minor, enabling features overlooked by the majors.
