SANTA CLARA (WiMAX Day). A group of six companies representing some of the largest WiMAX operators and equipment vendors announced the formation of the Open Patent Alliance (OPA), an initiative to accelerate innovation in the WiMAX market through patent sharing amongst market participants. Lead by Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Clearwire, Intel Corporation, Samsung Electronics and Sprint. According to a Cisco press release, the OPA will seek to “advance a competitive and open intellectual property rights model,” which will support “innovation through broader choice and lower equipment and service costs for WiMAX technology, devices and applications globally.” The OPA said it will form a “WiMAX patent pool” to help industry participants to gain access to patent licenses at predictable costs, and which are necessary to implement the WiMAX standard in devices and other equipment.