Context: Eeva Hakoranta was appointed Chief Licensing Officer of InterDigital in July 2020 and has since helped the company achieve some significant patent licensing milestones. The company in September announced targets of $1 billion in annual recurring revenue by 2030 (September 16, 2024 InterDigital press release).
What’s new: Ms. Hakoranta has stepped down from her role as Chief Licensing Officer effective April 4, 2025, and has been replaced – on an interim basis – by Julia Mattis, a 15-year veteran of InterDigital and currently the VP of Licensing and Head of the company’s Smartphone Licensing Program (April 7, 2025 InterDigital press release). Ms. Hakoranta will remain at InterDigital for the next three months as a Senior Advisor to facilitate the transition of her responsibilities.
Direct impact and wider ramifications: While this is a huge move for InterDigital, the company has already signed a new multi-year license agreement with HP Inc. (April 7, 2025 InterDigital press release). The agreement licenses HP personal computers to InterDigital’s Wi-Fi and video decoding technologies and means that the licensor now has more than 50% of the PC market under license.
Commenting on Ms. Hakoranta’s departure today, Liren Chen, President and Chief Executive Officer at InterDigital, said:
“I am grateful for Eeva’s dedication and contributions to InterDigital over these past four and a half years. Eeva has built a world-class licensing team that has driven significant growth of our licensing programs and put us in a strong position to achieve our long-term goals. I want to thank her for her support during this transition and wish her the best going forward.”
Under Ms. Hakoranta’s leadership, InterDigital celebrated many victories, including settling its long-running disputes with Lenovo (October 9, 2024 ip fray article) and Oppo (October 29 2024, ip fray article). Some of her other most notable achievements include facilitating the renewal of deals with both Apple and Samsung (January 16, 2024 ip fray article) without litigation and new licensing agreements with Panasonic (August 1, 2024 InterDigital press release), Google (July 2, 2024 InterDigital press release), and Samsung Electronics (January 16, 2024 InterDigital press release).
Prior to being appointed Chief Licensing Officer of InterDigital in July 2020, Ms. Hakoranta worked at Nokia for 14 years – starting off as director of IPR Legal and working her way up to Senior Vice President and Head of IP. She was also a specialist counsel at Finland-based law firm Roschier from 2000 to 2006.
InterDigital’s Interim Chief Licensing Officer Julia Mattis started at the company in 2010. She worked her way up from Vice President and Deputy General Licensing Counsel to (most recently) Vice President, Licensing and Head of Smartphone Licensing. Prior to joining InterDigital, Ms. Mattis was a senior counsel at Advanta from 2008 to 2009, an associate attorney at Pepper Hamilton LLP from 2006 to 2008 and an associate attorney at McGuireWoods from 2005 to 2006.
Ms. Mattis said in a statement today that the company’s new agreement with HP allows further investment into InterDigital’s wireless, video and AI research:
“I am pleased we were able to close this license through amicable negotiation, and I’d like to thank the HP team for their professional approach throughout the negotiation process.”