[citation][nom]Shin-san[/nom]They should go through the MPEG LA for the licensing, both Google and Microsoft. There's a patent pool for that[/citation]The problem is that Motorola owns at least one standards-essential H.264 patent, and they're not playing ball. MPEG LA agreements don't protect you if they're missing an essential patent owned by a hostile company (Motorola/Google). Motorola was involved in H.264's creation, and during the development they agreed (made commitments to the big standards bodies) to license their H.264 patent(s) under FRAND terms. Since Motorola Mobility fell on hard times, however, they have basically abandoned that path and have started demanding huge and ridiculous licensing fees that are not even CLOSE to being in line with FRAND.
What's really horrendously ironic is that Google was anti-H.264 before they bought Motorola's mobile arm. They pushed their own WebM and even Ogg standards, and preached free and open - until they got their hands on Motorola Mobility. Now they're continuing down the H.264 war path that Motorola started. I thought H.264 patent mess was bad for the internet, Google? Oh wait, that was before you owned any vital H.264 patents!
I'm hoping that H.265 will include stronger legally binding FRAND agreements, because as nice and free as WebM and Vorbis are, they're simply inferior in actual use as compression technologies.