Businessweek

InterDigital, Inc. designs and develops advanced technologies that enable and improve wireless communications and capabilities. The company designs and develops a range of innovations that are used in digital cellular and wireless products and networks, including 2G, 3G, 4G, and IEEE 802-related products and networks. It is a major contributor of intellectual property to the wireless communications industry. Products incorporating the company’s patented inventions include mobile devices, such as cellular phones, tablets, notebook computers and wireless personal digital assistants; wireless infrastructure equipment, such as base stations; and components, dongles, and modules for wireless devices. Technology Research and Development The company developed pioneering solutions for the primary cellular air interface technologies in use, such as TDMA and CDMA. Its continued development of those advanced digital wireless technologies and innovations in OFDM/OFDMA and MIMO technologies have enabled the company to create its worldwide portfolio of patents. In 2012, the company announced an improvement to its technology sourcing strategy. The company's internal, self-funded research and development efforts are centralized under Innovation Labs, a unit that would continue to pursue research into the ever-broadening field of mobile communications. In addition, it announced the formation of Innovation Partners, a new external sourcing model based around partnerships with major inventors and research organizations, as well as the acquisition of technology and patent portfolios that align with the company’s roadmap. Additionally, the company announced the formation of InterDigital Solutions, with a partial mandate of securing engineering services engagements that could supplement core internal research and development. As of December 31, 2012, the company’s patent portfolio consisted of approximately 1,500 U.S. patents (approximately 190 of which were issued in 2012) and approximately 8,800 non-U.S. patents (approximately 1,200 of which were issued in 2012). It also had various patent applications pending worldwide, with approximately 1,200 pending applications in the United States and approximately 7,900 pending non-U.S. applications. The patents and applications comprising its portfolio relate primarily to digital wireless radiotelephony technology (including 2G, 3G, and 4G technologies). Issued patents expire at differing times ranging from 2013 through 2031. The company’s research efforts are focused on technology solutions to solve the industry's requirement of providing enough bandwidth for handsets and various other connected devices, such as tablets and laptops. The company is developing technologies that would enable multimedia content delivery across heterogeneous devices and networks, to enable multimedia experience with optimal data usage and radio network efficiency. From an air interface perspective, the company is creating evolved system architectures that enable operation in small cells and additional frequency bands, improved cell-edge performance, as well as device-to-device communications. These solutions provide interference mitigation across cells, uniform coverage and improved data rates, system capacity, and energy efficiency. The company is also developing technologies that would optimize use of the current network resources by allocating and aggregating bandwidth across different networks and spectrum bands. In the field of machine-to-machine (M2M) applications, the company is developing technologies to enable interconnection for multiple access types (cellular, WLAN, and WPAN) and M2M service frameworks that could be managed by an operator and utilized by a set of vertical applications. Cellular Technologies The company developed a portfolio of TDMA-based patented inventions. These inventions include or relate to fundamental elements of TDMA-based systems in use worldwide. Some of its TDMA inventions include or relate to the fundamental architecture of commercial TD/FDMA systems; methods of synchronizing TD/FDMA systems; an approach to managing system capacity through the reassignment