More than 30 of China's cellphone manufacturers, designers and chipmakers have founded an alliance to establish a patent pool to reduce costs and risks in intellectual property rights.

Homegrown brands Lenovo, ZTE and TCL joined the group, but telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies and integrated circuit powerhouse MediaTek did not.

Increasing patent disputes have hindered efforts to expand abroad by some local firms, said Sun Wenping, vice-president of the Shenzhen Mobile Communications Association

Though the members are still short of core patents, the group together has more than 10,000 patents to share, so the alliance is expected to help insulate individual companies from trademark disputes, according to a participant.

Group purchases to reduce costs to individual companies may be another option for the new alliance, organizers said.

(Source: China Daily)