A term that most commonly refers to a single company having to pay patent license fees/royalties to numerous companies in the same or a similar field. When selling certain products that meet industry standards, the essential patents of several companies may be infringed; where each patent owner demands a royalty, the manufacturer may be required to pay high cumulative royalties (also known as Patent or Royalty Stacking.) It is also sometimes used to denote the net effect of adding and subtracting the royalties owed to each other by cross-licensees, usually resulting in a balancing fee which is the more commonly used term.