OSNews

It is hardly unusual for a large company like Microsoft to have relationships with a number of other companies and to use their services or join forces to achieve common goals - this is pretty normal in the business world. It is also pretty normal for people in one company working closely with another company to decide that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence and to move from one company to the other - I've done this myself on occasion. And it is again quite common for one company dealing with another company to poach staff from the other.

This is not remotely unusual or suspect in the business world. Many organisations require staff to sign a declaration as to whether they have any perceived or actual conflict of interest if they move from one company to another which has or had a business relationship with their former employer. If an employee of IP Innovations owns shares in Microsoft (or vice versa), that would be a perceived conflict of interest, and most likely the organisation would require that employee to divest themselves of those shares (or at the very least declare their interest), or face termination.

MS and other companies who own (or claim to own) IP have a shared interest in pursuing organisations or individuals that they perceive as violating their IP. Sharing resources & personnel to do this is quite legitimate, and does not constitute a conspiracy in any nefarious or criminal sense. Corporations join forces all the time to fight common battles - this is normal.

If Red Hat has not done anything wrong, they have nothing to worry about.