The IETF Codec BOF met at the recently held IETF Meeting 76 (November 8-13, 2009).  An audio codec working group was debated, with a proposed guideline:

Goal is to have royalty-free (RF) technology
- Should be distributable without fees or special conditions/restrictions

BOF materials, including agenda, audio and slides are here. An informational presentation from ITU presented at the BOF is here.  The introductory presentation provides the proposed reasoning for launching the group:

Need for high-quality audio codec that:
(1) is optimized for the Internet
(2) is under change control at a standards development organization
(3) can be widely implemented and easily distributed (e.g., royalty free)

Minutes are here and are worth reading in full.  They end with the observation:

In conclusion, there is a shared desire between the IETF and ITU-T to clearly articulate a practical mechanism to work together. This must be worked out and documented.

An archive of the email discussion alias is here.