This is the correct way to understand it. Dolby sells a bunch of codecs, and Fraunhofer sells USAC (which is basically Opus with some patented stuff added on).

This is the correct way to understand it. Dolby sells a bunch of codecs, and Fraunhofer sells USAC (which is basically Opus with some patented stuff added on). Their problem is that Opus serves many of those use cases for free. They can't allow that to happen, so scaring potential customers away is good for business.