Blog

<p>InterDigital is fueled by innovation. Our patented inventions have been licensed, and deliver benefits, to more than 6 billion devices worldwide, and this impact would be impossible without the brilliant researchers and inventors who make it possible.</p>
<p>We strive to recognize our inventors&rsquo; hard work and contributions to our company. As part of our annual Innovation Awards, the Inventor of the Year recognizes inventors who have made significant contributions to InterDigital's culture of innovation. The award celebrates the pioneers who go above and beyond and strive to promote technological evolution in wireless and video development.</p>
<p>Considering the breadth and impact of critical inventions alongside an assessment of industry recognitions and career accomplishments, InterDigital has named industry experts&nbsp;<span style="color: #00aeef;"><strong><strong>Moon-Il Lee&nbsp;</strong></strong></span>and&nbsp;<span style="color: #00aeef;"><strong><strong>Franck Galpin&nbsp;</strong></strong></span>the 2021 Inventors of the Year for their respective contributions to 5G wireless and video.</p>
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<p><span style="color: #00aeef;"><strong><strong>Moon-Il Lee</strong></strong></span></p>
<p>Moon-Il Lee has showcased leadership and innovation ingenuity throughout more than a decade with InterDigital. Since 2015, he has developed more than 100 inventions, that enable critical functions of 5G, including dynamic bandwidth and beam switching.</p>
<p>A respected expert on MIMO and beamforming, key techniques to support high frequency transmissions in FR1 and FR2, Moon-Il and his research have had an indelible impact on 5G features and applications, by providing increased throughput, coverage, and connection density for applications with enhanced data intensity.</p>
<p>In addition, Moon-Il has exhibited leadership in designing Sidelink PHY channels and procedures for 5G NR V2X to enable low latency and extended coverage for autonomous vehicle communications and other 5G use cases.</p>
<p>Moon-Il&rsquo;s inventions have played a critical role in enabling key features of 5G, and his leadership in 3GPP has helped shape important standards for industry. Responsible for developing the specification for the physical layer of radio interfaces for UE and base stations, RAN1 is the wireless radio access group exploring physical channels and modulation, channel coding and error detection, control and data procedures, and more.</p>
<p>His expertise is well-known and widely sought, as he was tapped by the RAN1 chair to be 5G NR feature lead driving research on V2X and URLLC. Moon-Il is admired and well respected amongst peers in RAN1 and across industry, making him both an outstanding inventor and a valuable partner for driving research collaboration and meaningful industry impact.</p>
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<p><span style="color: #00aeef;"><strong><strong>Franck Galpin</strong></strong></span></p>
<p>Franck Galpin&rsquo;s blended skills of software expertise, research competency, and impactful inventions have delivered significant value to InterDigital&rsquo;s video capabilities and advancements within the video ecosystem.</p>
<p>Since joining the company, Franck has developed a remarkable 150 inventions to drive video evolution.</p>
<p>Of his inventions, Franck has developed several enhancements to the Versatile Video Coding (VVC) codec, a video compression standard developed to improve compression performance and expand support for a range of applications. His inventions include motion vector predictors for the codec, and improved compression schemes for luminance and chrominance data in VVC.</p>
<p>In addition, Franck&rsquo;s research and more than 14 major contributions in the field of inter-coding and motion coding have shaped the standardization of VVC.</p>
<p>Separately, Franck has led and coordinated InterDigital&rsquo;s research on deep-based video coding, including the use of AI to address encoder complexity to propose more complex standardized tools. The research achieved 30% encoding time reduction for same quality intra pictures.</p>
<p>Receiving recognition from a variety of scientific publications, Franck has also been the main author on more than 10 contributions to JVET on Neural Network-based video coding. Franck&rsquo;s research expertise and inventions have fostered significant momentum for VVC standardization and his respect and credibility throughout JVET have secured his place as a leader on deep-based video coding and beyond.</p>
<p>We celebrate each and every inventor driving innovation throughout InterDigital and congratulate Moon-Il and Franck for their exceptional inventions and impact.</p>