>there are numerous companies that may wish to sue the users of VP8 over patent infringement. Qualcomm, Broadcom, Samsung etc. (Why would you want a free alternative when you're the only few companies that can make hardware encoders?)

What are you talking about? Nobody is going to use a software encoder where they need a hardware encoder. The whole point of a hardware encoder is that doing it in software won't fit within your processor consumption or energy budget. And hardware manufacturers will be happy to sell VP8 hardware encoders to anyone who wants to buy one -- especially now that they know they won't have to pay MPEG-LA any royalties to do it.