A broad cross license usually negotiated by two or more members of an industry to deal with a large number of potential blocking patents. Patent pooling arrangements can raise complex antitrust and competition law issues. The existence of patent pools or cross licenses involving two merging companies has sometime been considered relevant by competition and antitrust authorities when reviewing mergers, suggesting that the companies may, by virtue of their intellectual property, have a collective dominant position that would be exacerbated if the merger is allowed.