If hardware manufacturers choose H.265, VP9 and Daala will be marginalized purely because of performance concerns.
If, on the other hand, VP9 or Daala can be implemented in hardware cheaply enough and with good enough electrical characteristics, perhaps OEMs can be persuaded to use it.
H.265 merely standardizes on a set of the best known compression techniques that meet certain compression vs processing constraints. It just so happens that most of these techniques are patented. Which in turn is why MPEG-LA exists. This will continue to be true going forward. The only way to make a free codec viable is to fix the patent system. I'm all for patent reform, but as I mentioned elsewhere, I'd much rather discuss h265 tech here, and leave the patent debate for the numerous posts we're sure to continue to see on HN.