Could it be argued that a format being patent encumbered was less in focus back then, that "codecs are covered by patents and users of a codec must pay royaltie

Could it be argued that a format being patent encumbered was less in focus back then, that "codecs are covered by patents and users of a codec must pay royalties to the patent holders" was just the more or less unquestioned "way things were" back then by groups like ISO? The original JPEG was also patent encumbered after all. This is not a rhetorical question, I was way too young back then to have been aware of the conversations which were going on regarding JPEG-2000. I see that PNG was developed specifically to be unencumbered, which suggests that at least some groups were focused on it, to your point. But I can't tell if that was a mainstream concern at the time like it is now.