That's true, and Google explicitly granted their free usage, thus the codec is open in all senses of the word. I'd expect the same story with VP9. So what's your point?
Motorola was bought from beginning to use as a leverage tool against patent trolls like Apple and MS. What did you expect? VPx is intended to be open from beginning by Google.
You can never expect that, because you have no guarantee against unexpected patent trolling. Apple and MS are just looking for excuse to sabotage open codecs. But real threats come from themselves and unknown patent trolls.
