How InterDigital Turns Its Intellectual Property Into Cold, Hard Cash

2 hours ago 1

Dan Caplinger, The Motley Fool

Thu, January 15, 2026 astatine 11:26 AM CST 5 min read

InterDigital has amassed a treasure trove of intelligence property.
The institution licenses retired its exertion to a big of customers, generating recurring revenue.
InterDigital has seen a large ramp-up successful its concern successful transportation with the roar successful artificial intelligence.
10 stocks we similar amended than InterDigital ›

Innovation has led to immense gains for exertion stocks successful caller years, astir notably with the emergence of artificial intelligence. Many companies person travel up with their ain technological advances and applied them successful their ain businesses. However, InterDigital (NASDAQ: IDCC) follows a antithetic concern model, licensing retired its exertion to a big of customers alternatively than gathering its ain proprietary products.

The archetypal nonfiction successful this bid connected InterDigital gave a little overview of the IP-centered attack that the institution has utilized to large success. Here, you'll larn much astir the fiscal results that InterDigital has been capable to make from its licensing activities and what it has meant for semipermanent shareholders.

Satellite presumption of North America astatine nighttime with lines betwixt cities.

A speedy look astatine InterDigital's gross implicit the years reveals absorbing trends. The company's gross tends to beryllium rather lumpy, with licensees being consenting to wage much astatine cardinal moments of caller technological adoption. After the archetypal surge, InterDigital often goes done a consolidation signifier wherever gross flattens retired and adjacent declines until the adjacent caller circular of tech advances occurs. This rhythm has played retired respective times, including successful 2006, the aboriginal 2010s, and 2016.

However, the size of the astir caller maturation spurt for InterDigital has been rather noteworthy. Revenue much than doubled betwixt 2021 and 2024 and remained beardown during the archetypal 3 quarters of 2025 arsenic well. Net income has seen adjacent bigger gains, going from $55 cardinal successful 2021 to astir $500 cardinal implicit the past 12 months. Free currency travel has surged astir sevenfold, going from $91 cardinal to $630 cardinal implicit the aforesaid span of astir 5 years.

The astir caller play of accelerated maturation for InterDigital has travel astatine a clip erstwhile licensing momentum has been exceptionally strong. Deals from Sony (NYSE: SONY) and Vizio got the shot rolling successful 2021, but InterDigital added lucrative concern from Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), and General Motors (NYSE: GM) successful 2022. From there, a steadfast premix of user electronics companies, mobile work providers, and AI hyperscalers joined the lawsuit list, including Samsung and Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) successful 2023 and Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) and HP (NYSE: HPQ) aft that.