There's a lot of h.264 to buy, from a lot of owners, and not very many of them would dream of selling.<p>Besides, Apple has been a member of MPEG-LA for a long time, and has 1 patent in the h.264 pool: <a href="http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=VNKRAAAAEBAJ&#38;dq=7292636" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=VNKRAAAAEBAJ&#38;dq=7...</a>