InterDigital Picking From Apple's Tree

While Friday's 1.7% drop in the S&P closed last week on a somber note, wireless technology developer and Motley Fool Stock Advisor pick InterDigital (Nasdaq: IDCC) was singing a different tune. Shares in the company surged nearly 14% after it bumped up guidance for recurring licensing revenue in the coming quarter by $2 million, to a range of $55.5 million to $56.5 million. The company also noted that it recently inked a new license agreement and will receive a one-time, $20 million license fee in the near future.

While the press release offered little detail, speculation about the identity of the new licensee was fueled by a regulatory disclosure posted on the company's website the same day. In an 8-K filing, investors learned InterDigital scored a license deal with Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) that would earn royalties on current and future iPhones. While it seems to fit that the $20 million would come from Apple, and the sale of iPhones would account for an extra $2 million in royalties next quarter, the company gave no official confirmation that Apple is the source of the new revenue.

Regardless of whether the Apple license and revenue detail are connected, the deal is a sweet one for InterDigital. The seven-year term covers current iPhone models and certain future mobile phones as well. It's also a worldwide license, meaning that InterDigital will earn royalties on iPhones sold not only by AT&T (NYSE: T) in the U.S., but also those widely expected to be sold in the near future by European and Asian wireless carriers.  

The Friday news was the second piece of good news for the company in the week. Only two days earlier, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) announced that it is initiating an investigation into whether certain Nokia (NYSE: NOK) phones should be banned from import because they violate InterDigital patents. While only the first step in a long process, the ITC has already shown that it is willing to ban phones containing certain chips from Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM) at the request of Broadcom (Nasdaq: BRCM).

InterDigital can afford to wait for the ITC case to play out -- with Apple recently dropping the price of the iPhone to delve deeper into the mass market, InterDigital will be reaping some nice fruit from this deal.

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