You're not covered until they admit they are infringing a patent and then license it on your behalf. That wouldn't make me feel any better. Meanwhile, you're either infringing a patent or under threat of lawsuit until Google does something about it.
That's paranoia, unless you happen to be the general counsel for a Fortune 100. Because the biggest user of libvpx isn't you or me, it's going to be Google, and they're the juiciest target of any patent infringement lawsuit regarding the implementation.
If the codec works well, then just frigging use it. Google released it because they want people to use it. If you insist on peace of mind, MPEG-LA will be more than happy to take your money.
You're probably right that it's paranoia, but I just don't see any promises from Google to shield from or take responsibility for infringement; they just suggest that they could license patents in the future.
It probably wouldn't stop me but I would only do so without any sort of expectations from Google.
None of the major codec players promise to shield from or take responsibility for infringement, at least not for normal licenses. Not MPEG-LA, not Microsoft, not IEEE, not Google, not Fraunhofer.
