8 years after that article was written, many of the patents on H.264 are actually approaching expiry soon (i.e. within a year or two):

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

This is not surprising, given that the first version of the H.264 standard was published in 2003 and patents are usually valid for 20 years.

Its predecessors, H.263 and MPEG-4 ASP, have already patent-expired and are in public domain.