President, Chief Executive Officer & Director, Interdigital
Search every verified Lawrence Chen interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. In a September 2024 interview, InterDigital CEO Liren Chen described the company as an independent research firm focused on fundamental technology in wireless radio and artificial intelligence. He stated that InterDigital has "one of the most valuable portfolios" in the industry and derives the vast majority of its revenue through IP licensing. Chen noted that the company invests about half of its recurring revenue into R&D and builds partnerships with universities and other companies. He highlighted long-term licensing agreements with major customers including Apple, Samsung, Amazon, and Google, and said a recent renewal with Apple extends through 2029. Chen also discussed InterDigital's role in contributing technology to open standards for cellular technology, including 5G and future 6G, and noted that the company's AI lab in Silicon Valley works on using AI to solve fundamental problems in wireless and video. He promoted an upcoming Investor Day in New York, scheduled for September 10, 2024, which he said would be his first since joining the company three and a half years ago, and would include a deeper dive into the business and a long-term growth roadmap.
“InterDigital is an independent research company. We focus on fundamental technology in wireless radio and artificial intelligence. So we create the technology. As you mentioned, we have a very large patent portfolio, but it's also one of the most valuable portfolios in our industry.”
“We derive vast majority of revenue through IP license. It's an interesting business model that seems pretty unique in terms of publicly traded companies: research patents and then the licensing. So a lot of your revenue looks to me like it's recurring. Is that right? It's absolutely right, Oliver. So one of the real st...”
“Google has been a licensee for InterDigital for a while. They had a license with us for 4G technology, which is one of the cellular technologies, and we have negotiated with them. We added 5G, and we also added radio in terms of video codec technology and Wi-Fi technology. In addition, we broadened the scope of their p...”
“We come up with the fundamental technology and we apply patent to protect our technology. But another really important aspect of our business is we actually share our technology through open standard. Our engineers are well-respected in our industry. So we lead the standard development. So our part of our technology be...”
“At InterDigital, we like to see the inventors as a rock star for our company. So we have some of the brightest minds in our industry, and we frankly keep on working on attracting the best minds. We spend a lot of time training them, motivating them. So we always have the best team in our industry. What that enables us...”
“We actually invest very heavily for the future for our company. We invest in people, we invest in infrastructure, which includes the computing infrastructure. We frankly also invest in our ability to build and maintain and enhance our patent portfolio. On top of that, we build very strong partnerships with universities...”
“Apple has been a long term customer for us for actually quite a while. Apple has been a licensee for us since 2007, and 2007 was before they even released the very first iPhone. So that relationship has been going on for close to 20 years now. We just renewed the agreement two years ago, around this time, actually 2022...”
“We have a very, very large patent portfolio and frankly, a very broad scope of technology. For example, we are in cellular technology, which obviously iPhone uses, but we frankly also are one of the top developers for video technology. That's a video codec, compression decompression technology. And those are exceptiona...”
“Our AI lab is actually in Silicon Valley. So what we have been working on actually for a couple of decades now is to use AI to solve the fundamental problems in wireless and video. So we don't really compete on the application layer or the service layer. What we do do is to make sure the fundamental technology for wire...”
“Next week, September 10th, we will be having our Investor Day in New York. This is actually my first investor Day since joining the company three and a half years ago. So we will do a deeper dive of our business as well as lay out our long term growth roadmap for our company. So I welcome the audience to either partici...”
Liren Chen, CEO & President of InterDigital (IDCC), says his company has "one of the most profitable portfolios" in the industry.
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