Well, if I decide to question in court the validity of software patents in general, Facebook etc have still the right to get back at me.<p>So, no, webm, VP8, VP9, Google’s new stuff, etc is not &quot;free of patents&quot;, it just happens to have patents which most users don’t notice.<p>It’s Google’s business model in general, make it just good enough that most never notice the drawbacks.