I think what GP is saying is that, upon Fraunhofer's licensing of their technologies to Thomson, Thomson demanded (perhaps contractually) that Fraunhofer defend their patents so that Thomson could actually "get something" for having licensed those patents.

This is pretty common when a company exclusively licenses a patent: they demand that the patent holder sue anyone using the tech who isn't them, so that they actually benefit in the market from the exclusivity. Without that enforcement, the money they were paying for exclusivity would be for nothing.

Thomson just made this kind of arrangement in the context of a non-exclusive license — getting Fraunhofer to start legally enforcing their patent rights at all, so that Thomson and whoever else licenses Fraunhofer's patents could benefit in the market from having licensed the patents, by ensuring that non-licensees aren't getting to use the patented tech for free.

In the US, such an arrangement is unnecessary (to the point that it might be causing a miscommunication in this conversation!), since patent holders tend to legally protect their patents all on their own, suing non-licensees for use of the patented tech even when there are no licensees demanding to "get the benefit they paid for." In Europe, patents aren't sued over by default, with enforcement instead only beginning when the patent is licensed and the licensee demands enforcement so that they can benefit.