Six of technology’s biggest names are joining forces to make wired connections a thing of the past. Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco Systems, Clearwire, Intel, Samsung Electronics and Sprint Nextel announced an agreement this week to form the Open Patent Alliance to help companies develop cutting-edge WiMax devices at a reasonable cost. The concept driving the Open Patent Alliance is the idea of open intellectual property rights. Instead of individual companies developing products and charging their own patent royalties, the newly formed alliance is designed to make patents cheap and easy for anyone to obtain.
