Allied Security Trust (AST) is an independent, not-for-profit cooperative that provides its members with a method of mitigating the risk of patent assertions and litigation.
Business
Each member contribute to the operating expense of the trust, and hold funds in escrow for the purchase of patents. Each member's escrow funds are used for the purchase of only those patents that they are interested in. The members involved in the purchase are then licensed to the patents. After a certain period of time, the patents are sold or donated. This is known as a catch and release strategy. AST does not litigate.
Members
Allied Security Trust public members in 2023, include
Avaya
Adobe
Cisco
Dolby
IBM
Intel
Meta
Microsoft
Oracle
Philips
Salesforce
ServiceNow
Snap
Sony
Spotify
Uber
Verizon
Executives
Russell Binns, Jr., CEO
Kerry Hopkin, CFO
Ray Strimaitis, VP, Corporate Development & Global Strategy
Mihir Patel, VP, Technology
See also
PatentFreedom
Patent troll
RPX Corporation
Open Invention Network
References
External links
Home page
IAM Magazine article comparing & contrasting AST with RPX, May/June 2010
Companies based in New York (state) Defensive patent aggregation companies of the United States