PAX has nine members: Google, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, HTC, Foxconn Technology Group, Coolpad, BQ, HMD Global, and Allview. All of them have 230,000 global patents which means that if Android is challenged one of them is likely to have something stowed away to counter-sue.

“PAX's purpose is to create a "community-driven [patent] clearinghouse, developed together with our Android partners, [that] ensures that innovation and consumer choice -- not patent threats -- will continue to be key drivers of our Android ecosystem. PAX is free to join and open to anyone", wrote Google.

But the announcement and the PAX website are short on details and although everyone is invited to get a copy of the cross license, Google has rather a lot of power in the whole picture.

It can decide if you have pure motives and can hold to an NDA and it appears to have only recruited its existing Google business partners. Microsoft, for example, has not signed up even though it makes a lot of money out of Android.

Word on the street is that Google is expecting some new patent war and is rallying its allies to see off the challenges, or at least put the fear of God into them.