He didn't say Apple was assembling this patent pool.

But presumably, Apple is going to be a part of it. Remember that Apple does have stake in MPEG-LA.

As mentioned above, Apple has one patent out of hundreds in the H.264 pool, and one patent in MPEG-4 Systems Pool.

Maybe they'll be a part of it and maybe they won't, but it doesn't sound like they're big players in the video patent space.

That's one interpretation. Another is that some other entity is gathering patents to use against Theora.

Seems reasonable to assume it's the big player in video patents, MPEG LA. Apple has contributed patents to their pool.

If this is legit, Apple almost certainly owns some of the patents involved, even if they're not the instigator.

When I read Steve's response, I didn't see anything implying that Apple would be involved. Even if they have some patents, they don't have to enforce them.