Context: In a quarterly report published on LinkedIn, Jim Harlan, founder of The Standard Strategy (and formerly at InterDigital), tracks a 10-company basket of IP-licensing-centric names, or businesses “whose revenue is patents, not products”. These include:
- Xperi
- CEVA
- Dolby
- Ericsson
- Nokia
- Rambus
- Qualcomm
- InterDigital
- Adeia
- Acacia Research
What’s new: In his latest report, Mr. Harlan has found that, indexed against XLK since 2023, the gap is now wide: while tech has broadly nearly doubled in value, the licensing basket is up roughly half of that (August 12, 2026 LinkedIn post by Jim Harlan). He notes that this divergence is not a “verdict” on the value of the actual IP itself, but rather how markets price the shape of licensing revenue, which he calls “lumpy”. This is because one quarter may look good from one single catch-up payment, while the next could be dominated by arbitration or negotiations and look quiet from the outside. While product revenue will compound smoothly, licensing payments arrive in chunks – but markets pay a premium for the “smooth line” and will instead discount steps. This is even though, he adds, the steps may ultimately sum to more.
Below, ip fray breaks down some more of the key highlights from the report.
Multimedia driving licensing fronts, licensees seeking ever-higher targets
Some of the industries doing the best include Non-Pay-TV and streaming, with video encoding patent pools gaining rapid traction. Smartphone licensing remains a “cornerstone revenue driver”, according to the report, while automotive is constantly creating new categories of licensable endpoints, and streaming and cloud services have seen the most notable momentum.
The group of companies Mr. Harlan focused on are revising their long-term revenue targets materially upward (with some even as high as 20% or more). This underlines a certain level of confidence.
Mr. Harlan also analyzed each of the major SEP owners in his basket on an individual basis, looking at the revenue they earned in Q2, the enforcement strategies they took publicly, and which of them have the best and worst outlooks.
He noted below his analysis, too, what the group all have in common. This includes, he said, that each has a multi-front patent enforcement or dispute resolution campaign, and that every one of them is either maintaining or increasing their shareholder returns. Multiple businesses in the group also explicitly invoked 6G standards-body positioning.
InterDigital
In pole position, the company earned a total revenue of $260.2 million in Q2 2026, which was nearly double its guidance range ($139–$143 million). This was largely thanks to its Amazon deal (June 11, 2026 ip fray article) and $103.7 million in catch-up revenue (although it should be noted that the Amazon agreement’s final terms are still not final). According to Mr. Harlan, the company holds the strongest position on near-term momentum, too, with an annualized recurring revenue of $625.7 million, keeping the company on track for its billion-dollar-plus ARR target by 2030. It has been very successful in its enforcement campaign against Disney, in which it secured two HEVC injunctions against Disney in the UPC (July 23, 2026 ip fray article), as well as Germany (November 21, 2025 ip fray article). And characterizing Disney as an “unwilling licensee” has strengthened its enforcement credibility, Mr. Harlan wrote.
Nokia
Meanwhile, Nokia’s success lies very much in its hardware business at the moment, the report reveals. Its AI and Cloud segment sales of €446 million more than doubled year-over-year on data center interconnect demand, alongside €2.8 billion in order intake. However, its free cash flow was negative €732 million on seasonal payments, and this quarter alone it signed with Geely (May 21, 2026 ip fray article), Acer (June 19, 2026 ip fray article), Asus (June 25, 2026 ip fray article), Lotus, and Lenovo (June 18, 2026 ip fray article) – which Mr. Harlan notes means its near-term pipeline of enforceable disputes is “thinning”. But its enforcement strategy has been very prosperous – in its case against Geely, for example, it obtained anti-interim-licence orders in April (April 22, 2026 ip fray article) and settled the very next month.
Ericsson
The company saw a decline in IPR licensing revenue (SEK 3.4 billion from SEK 4.9 billion), but it noted in a press release announcing its settlement with Transsion (July 8, 2026 ip fray article) that the financial benefit from this cross-licensing deal would be reflected in its Q3 2026 report.
Qualcomm
Qualcomm’s revenue was the “least distorted” in the group, Mr. Harlan noted. He emphasized that the company’s strength lies in its non-handset diversification trajectory, such as the BMW “landmark” and its collaboration with Stellantis extending into the 2030s.
Dolby
Dolby’s licensing revenue of $282 million is positive, and the business is in good position for margin expansion, according to Mr. Harlan. However, it has opened several new enforcement fronts (Barco over HDR patents and Snap in HEVC/AV1 (June 10, 2026 ip fray article)), it is embroiled in litigation with Roku, and it suffered “collateral damage” when Disney was forced to switch off Dolby Vision due to an injunction granted in InterDigital v. Disney (January 23, 2026 ip fray article).
Adeia
The company reported $96.1 million in revenue in Q2, which it noted was on plan, but while its non-Pay-TV recurring revenue grew 54% year-over-year, this nearly doubles the size of Pay-TV recurring revenue. Adeia’s “weakness”, according to the report, is “scale relative to ambition”. It has not disclosed any specific timelines for its long-term $600 million target, while the company may suffer from future pay-TV headwinds and CEO succession uncertainty. However, the company is really leaning into diversification (May 6, 2026 ip fray article) and a recent RPX pooled deal covering 10 member companies, and semiconductor hybrid bonding, was raised to $200 million from $100 million, underlines that.