Six of the largest players in the WiMAX market on Monday announced a patent pooling alliance that will attempt to cap the technology’s equipment and service costs by managing patent licensing.

The founding members of the Open Patent Allianc--Intel, Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Samsung, Sprint Nextel, and Clearwire--hope to spur customer demand for WiMAX by keeping device costs low.

Patent pooling is a licensing arrangement agreed to by patent holders whereby companies that make products based on the patents pay a common price for all or most of the essential patents involved in the creation of products.

“This open mindset is encouraging news for smaller device makers because it means that companies are not going to overprotect their turf using just patents,” said Renan Jalil, CEO of WiChorus, a San Jose, California-based maker of  WiMAX gear.

WiMAX, a wireless broadband technology that has been around for about seven years, faces an imminent challenge from LTE, a cellular technology being championed by AT&T, Verizon, and Vodafone.

Experts believe LTE is perhaps two or three years away from making its sustained market entry, giving WiMAX that much time to gain a solid foothold.

“This patent pool is an attempt by WiMAX product suppliers to capture market share while they can, and take advantage of the window of opportunity left open by LTE,” said Fred Boxa, a principal with IBB Consulting.

In April a group of LTE product sellers including Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, and Nokia announced a similar agreement to establish common rules for LTE patent licensing.

But the LTE announcement did not include a formal structure or clear ground rules.

Patents in the telecommunications market generally account for a much higher percentage of the price of consumer devices than they do in the consumer electronics market. Many in the WiMAX market believe that the technology will extend to consumer electronics devices such as cameras and set-top boxes.

In that scenario, using a WiMAX-enabled camera, a user will be able to upload photos or HD videos directly from a camera without involving a PC or a cell phone.

“We believe that WiMAX will be integrated into a range of consumer electronics devices, some of which have yet to be invented,” Sriram Viswanathan, vice president, Intel Capital and general manager, Intel WiMAX program office.

But adding a very expensive communications link laden down by patents cost to a fairly inexpensive consumer device could render that device and parts of the WiMAX consumer market DOA.