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Vincent Padois, head tutor at the Pierre and Marie Curie University who teaches robotics and is babysitting the Paris ICub, makes a demonstration with ICub robot, a ?hybrid embodied cognitive system for a humanoid robot" about 1 metre (3.2 feet) high, at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris September 4, 2009. Six versions of ICub exist in laboratories across Europe, where scientists are painstakingly tweaking its electronic brain to make it capable of learning, just like a human child and hoping it will learn how to adapt its behaviour to changing circumstances, offering new insights into the development of human consciousness. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer

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    Tech majors to join hands against patent suits: report

    Mon Jun 30, 2008 12:46am EDT

    (Reuters) - Information technology giants are teaming up in defense against potential patent-infringement lawsuits, the Wall Street Journal said on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter.

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    The companies plan to buy up key intellectual property before it falls into the hands of parties that could use it against them, the paper said.

    The paper's sources said the companies, which include Verizon Communications Inc, Google Inc, Cisco Systems Inc, Hewlett-Packard Co and Ericsson, are believed to have a joined a group calling itself the Allied Security Trust.

    The companies will pay roughly $250,000 to join the group and will each put about $5 million into escrow with the organization to go toward future patent purchases, the paper said.

    Verizon, Cisco and Google did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment. HP and Ericsson could not be reached for comment.

    (Reporting by Ajay Kamalakaran in Bangalore; Editing by Jennifer Tan)
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