Ha, you're misremembering, but it's been a long time so I don't begrudge you.

Fraunhofer is a research institution. They didn't really do licencing, that's why they never went after anyone.

Then Thomson joined the venture (wouldn't you know it, French!) and the fun with litigation got started

Not trying to protect Frauenhofer there at all, if they didn't smell opportunity they wouldn't have teamed up with Thomson after all... But I think the trend is very clear. Germans are generally a lot worse at the litigation game then the french. Historically that makes sense, but it's definitely surprising that it still holds true in modern times