It is unfortunate but the future of truly patent unencumbered codec may be H.264. The high profile will be patents free soon.

We should be able to push H.264 AVC closer or even exceed HEVC by breaking compatibilities and limitations originally imposed due to resources requirement.

Dream on, some of the original patents expire only by 2030 due to perfectly legal term extensions. AVC won’t be free for quite some time. Better embrace the newer codecs even if they have a price tag.