MPEGLA collect royalties from device makers and chip-makers. Good luck to them if they want to collect royalties from every VLC user. I can think of nothing which kills the demand for H.264 decoding hardware faster.

EDIT: This is as an aside to the fact that I'm pretty sure they don't have an enforceable claim to kill x264.

MPEG LA also collects for software implementations Who do you think Microsoft Pays for the h.264 decoder in Windows.

X264 is derived from the SMPTE Sample code that is provided by the standards body. It is Open Source but it is not Free.

Functionally indistinguishable - x264 don't sell it. x265 was created precisely so vendors could sell it.

Physics is totally math.

Google keeps their algorithm secret, so the patent system isn't even helping there. And pagerank, the academic paper describing a mathematical algorithm? Don't even joke about that not being math. PR(A) = (1-d) + d (PR(T1)/L(T1) + ... + PR(Tn)/L(Tn))

Google Search is just math, and a physics engine for a game is just math. Both of those things also tend to be covered by trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets, not patents.

Your argument is terrible. Justify your aggression with better arguments.