Trying to milk the last drop before the patents expire? H.264 patents have already expired in most of the world and the remaining ones, which might not even be necessary for the vast majority of H.264 use, are also approaching expiry very soon:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Have_the_patents_for_H.264_M...

Milk the last drop, or raise the prices so high that people transition to a more reasonably priced option with a patent that isn’t expiring soon?

It's interesting because this isn't that exactly the same thing Fraunhofer did with the MP3 patent?