Eight top tech companies recently joined forces to form an alliance dedicated to balancing the patent system by improving patent quality and reining in the impact of nonpracticing entities, often referred to as “patent trolls.”

Two in-house lawyers from member companies said the motivation to join stemmed from the desire for a strong patent system that protects inventions and investments made in innovation.

The High Tech Inventors Alliance, which was announced July 10, counts Amazon.com Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., Salesforce.com Inc., Google Inc., Intel Corp., Adobe Systems Inc., Dell Technologies Inc. and Oracle Corp. as members. Combined, these eight companies own more than 115,000 U.S. patents and spent over $62 billion on research and development last year.