Google and four other IT giants have united to form a group to protect themselves from patent-infringement disputes.

The search firm will be joined by Cisco, HP, Ericsson and Verizon Communications.
Each of the five companies involved will pay $250,000 (£125,400) to join the Allied Security Trust, contributing a further $5m each to be put towards the purchase of technology patents.

In this way the group hopes to purchase important intellectual property before it can be acquired by rivals, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The collective is believed to have been influenced by Research in Motion's court battle with patent-holding company NTP. The Blackberry-maker eventually paid a settlement of $612.5m in March 2006.