Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Research Frontiers Investor Conference Call to discuss the first quarter of 2023 results of operations and recent developments. During today's presentation, all parties will be in a listen-only mode. And following the presentation, the conference will be opened for questions by pressing Pound one. This conference is being recorded today. A replay of this conference call will be available starting later today in the Investors section of Research Frontiers' website at www.smartglass.com and will be available for replay for the next 90 days. Please note that some of the comments made today may contain forward-looking information. The words expect, anticipate, plans, forecasts, and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Statements that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements that are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions that are part of the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements reflect the company's current beliefs, and a number of important factors could cause actual results for future periods to differ materially from those expressed. Significant factors that could cause results to differ from those anticipated are described in our filings with the SEC. Research Frontiers undertakes no obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements to reflect new events or uncertainties. The company will be answering many of the questions that were e-mailed to it prior to this conference call, either in their presentation or as part of the Q&A session at the end. In some cases, the company has responded directly to e-mail questions prior to this call or will do so afterwards in order to answer more questions of general interest to shareholders on this call. If you find that your question has been substantially answered as a courtesy and to allow time for other shareholders to ask their questions, please remove yourself from the queue, by pressing pound 1. Also, we ask that you keep your questions brief in the interest of time. I would now like to turn the conference over to Joe Harary, President and Chief Executive Officer of Research Frontiers. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Ross, and welcome aboard, and hello, everyone, and welcome to our first quarter 2023 Investor Conference Call. If you had a chance to review our 10-Q or the press release we issued earlier today with your financial results for the first quarter of '23, you'll see that we're in very good shape. Total expenses were lower in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same quarter last year. Investment income was up and our net loss was down 26%. At March 31, 2023, we had no debt and more than $4 million in cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities and working capital of $4.6 million. We expect to have sufficient working capital for at least the next 5 years of operations. I think everyone will be very pleased to hear that royalty income for the first quarter of 2023 was up 91% from the previous quarter and was up 43% from the first quarter of 2022. This increase came from higher royalties in our two largest markets, the automotive and aircraft markets. Car models from Cadillac, Ferrari, McLaren, and at least one other Asian car manufacturer are expected to be introduced into serial production in 2023 using our patented SPD-SmartGlass technology in their panoramic glass roofs. Sales continue in various models of aircraft, and you will see from recent announcements just a few weeks ago by our licensee Vision Systems, they are now supplying SPD electronically dimmable windows on two very large aircraft from Airbus, the ACJA319NEO with AMAC Aerospace and the ACJ220 with Comlux. Deployment of SPD on trains and boats continue as well as for architectural applications. 2023 started as an active year for SPD with debuts by Gauzy and many of their customers at the Consumer Electronics Show, including the keynote by the…

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Jared Sherman from Strategic Planning Group.

A question for you because I know you seem limited on what you're able to say based on their equipment manufacturers and Gauzy, they want to announce things themselves. And I'm guessing guidance, it's kind of hard for you to put out because you don't really know when the cars are going to hit the streets. But one thing I was thinking that you could control would be some sort of a stock buyback and being now you sold some shares at $2.30, it's a pretty nice discount. It was such a long runway of cash reserves. I can't think of a better way to get behind the stock and show some support that you guys believe in the thing. I was wondering what your thoughts were on that.

Well, things like stock buybacks and dividends, which is something we talked about on the last call, which is another use of the capital we have, are things that have to be decided by the full board. All of us on the board though are shareholders and have been shareholders for decades. So I personally would love to see higher stock prices and dividends come out. But it's not something that we have an immediate plan for. And I think even though we're coming into an environment where there's a lot more certainty, and I'm going to put on my hat as a former economist at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York. My sense, as best I could see it, is that businesses are starting to get used to the current reality in the marketplace, which means there's predictability and less paralysis going on in the market, which is a good thing. The capital markets still haven't fully opened up. And based on some of the things going on out there that we pay attention to, probably after Labor Day, they might. And I think we'll always look at our cash position as something that is a cushion against uncertainties so that if you're speculating on anything, it's not whether we're going to be in business in 6 months, it's going to be the magnitude of the sales of our technology. But in the past, we've done stock buybacks and we might do it again.

And our next question comes from Jeremy Law an Investor.

Joe, I'm concerned about this litigation with this company, Global Glass. And I'm wondering how are you controlling your technology. I've read through the filing, and it looks like there's a question about the control system itself that was created by FCFC. Where are we at?

Okay. Great question. Thanks for asking it. And as someone that read through the litigation papers, you might even be an attorney yourself, you know that there's usually limits that you want to say publicly about any pending litigation. But let me just kind of talk to the public filings, and I think that will put everything in context. Number one, we don't believe there's any infringement going on at all, and GGT has not been able to show any infringement out there. So the first thing is on the merits, there's nothing we're worried about there. But I think a very important thing that you should know is pretty much in every one of our license agreements, there's a provision that says that when that license terminates or expires, Research Frontiers get the license back of all the IP of the company that developed it relating to SmartGlass. So in the case of the SPD Control Systems license, when they terminated their license in 2015 or 2016, we got a royalty-free perpetual license back and all of their IP and a right to sublicense everyone else. So basically, A, there's no infringement, and b even if we were doing exactly what was in their patents and we're not, none of our licensees to my knowledge are, we would have a full license to do it. So I'm not at all concerned about it. I think it's a nuisance lawsuit. We're responding to it because you have to respond seriously to every type of lawsuit. But I think also that we're going to come out doing quite well in that lawsuit.

[Operator Instructions] And at this time, there appears there to be no further questions. I'd like to turn the call back over to Joe for closing remarks. Joe, would you like to take the question?

Absolutely. Let's do it.

Okay. And our next question comes from Bruce Denny who is an Investor.

What about transparent displays, how is that market going?

That market is something I'm very excited about because we talked earlier about some of the nontraditional uses that BMW is doing with headlights and also heads-up displays. Companies like LG Display and others have developed what they call a transparent OLED for everyone else's reference, and it's basically the ability to put OLED technology on a transparent material like a piece of glass or a piece of plastic. And what it does is it opens up the whole world of turning your window in your home or in your car into a full high-definition display. But if you think about the optics behind that, if you have daylighting behind that, it's going to wash out the display. So SPD film incorporated with the transparent OLED actually solved that problem beautifully because what it does is when you want that window to be a television. You basically turn off the SPD film that blocks 99.5% of the light, so you don't have the washout that you would have normally from daylighting coming through a transparent material like a window. And then when you want it to be a window a clear window, you flip on the SPD and turn off the OLED and it becomes a clear window. So it's really -- you've seen this in science fiction movies like total recall and things like that. But if you came to CES this year, you would have seen this in person and people were just stopping in their tracks when they walked by the Gauzy LG display there that had this because it really was something that was quite startling and beautiful, and I think it's going to have really good legs. And when you're in a consumer electronics market like that, the volumes could be enormous. And we're not…

Part of my question is how about revenue streams. Are we starting to see commercial production of these televisions and displays? Or is that still in the future?

It's still in the near future. When I say near future, I'm not sure if LG has announced the launch date, but we're not talking about an early 2023 event. So I think it will happen. What I can't predict is it going to happen in the home and office first or is it going to happen in some of the more commercial applications that they originally slated for like multimedia displays in museums, retail environments and sports, and other types of things or transportation. I mean if you looked at the last 3 or 4 car shows, these transparent OLEDs with SPD have appeared in a number of vehicle windows too , trains and cars as well. So it's hard to predict where they're going to come out first. The good thing about our business is we don't have to do the development work there. We just provide the solution that someone else does. So I like that.

That's great. And then one more question is how about the architectural market? Have we seen more architectural applications since our last call or since we last talked about the architectural market?

We have. And one of the questions that I got, actually, which I forgot to address, and I apologize was from Judy about a company that has a retrofit application for glass in the architectural market. And she thought would that be a good use for SPD? And the answer is yes. And not only the company she mentioned, which is a start-up that is going through their Series A, but we have a very well-established, mature well-capitalized licensee that has developed their own retrofit solution for architectural and we see that as being a game changer for architectural SPD smart windows too. And I think that's maybe just to spend a minute or two more on it. If you think about architectural windows, if you're building a house, it's relatively straightforward. You take the glass out, you put in smart glass, you wire it and you're done. But if you're taking an existing building, let's say, it’s in New York, if you're going to do anything with the windows, A, you need landlord approval. B, you need to put fairly obtrusive scaffolding . And if you walk around, you'll see these all over New York and other large cities. And it's the bane of existence for people because the retail stores get adversely affected by that. The cost of putting it up is high. The building's aesthetics get compromised because of it while the construction is going on. And sometimes these things stay up for years. The only advantage I've ever found is walking my dog in New York when it's raining and you can walk him underneath these scaffolds and the dog stays dry, and Donut really appreciates that. But other than that, you try to avoid that, and it's an added cost also. So it's not only disruption but costs. So now if you say, okay, we can retrofit an existing building? We don't have to take the existing glass out. We could put in a glass and retrofit it to become smart. You totally change that equation. You don't have to put up scaffolding, you don't have to block views. You don't have to really spend a lot of time or disruption on the building. And you could do it very quickly. And in some cases, the system that I'm talking about that our licensee has, they come into a major government office building. And this wasn't with SPD, but this is during the initial trials for this approach, and they were able to outfit the entire building over a weekend. So it really totally transforms how you deliver smart glass to a building.

Fabulous So are we looking at government contracts for this?

We're looking at that and even commercial because there are a number of buildings out there that have either energy-inefficient monolithic glass or want to take advantage of the Dynamic Glass Act and they would like to upgrade their buildings. And of course, as energy prices have been rising, energy efficiency in buildings have become more and more important. So from an economic standpoint, not just an environmental standpoint.

So is anyone working with the application of the combination of SPD and transparent solar?

Yes. Yes, we've done that. Actually, there were actually aircraft windows a few years ago that came out from Vision Systems called Energia, which actually generated 20x more power than you needed for the SPD to operate. So that technology is very feasible with our technology because transparent photovoltaics tend to not have the same power generation ability as nontransparent photovoltaics. And that kind of keeps them out of the equation for certain things. But with our technology, since we use such low power, it's very, very feasible to do that. And we're kind of agnostic as to which transparent photovoltaic our licensee's work with because they all work.

Yes. Okay. How about the marine market? We haven't heard anything about all the yachts .

I alluded to it a little bit that those projects continue. Those are mostly being spearheaded by Vision Systems and Isoclima. Those are two companies that are very big into Yacht glass, and they've done very well.

Okay. All right Joe, thank you very much.

Good talking to you, Dr. Denny

And our next question comes from William Berg, an Investor.

Yes. Thank you, Joe. Can you give us any progress with regards to windshield applications, I'm thinking along the lines of Gentex with their mirror.

In terms of rearview mirrors or in terms of sun visors and other types of applications?

Yes, embedded into the windshield.

Okay. So we've done that actually, McLaren did that on one of their vehicles that they put into commercial production. It's eminently doable to do that. And as long as you're talking about going above the AS line, which is the blue shade band that you typically see on a windshield, you could do whatever you want without regulatory issues at all on that. And yes, I think it's a very elegant use of SPD. And if I will say this, I'm not going to mention which major automaker we've been working on with that. But I saw the video when we revealed it. And there was a couple of choice , 4-letter words like, "Oh my F’N God," when they saw it, it was perfect. So I think it's going to be a nice item for the automakers.

And our next question comes from Francis Koturba an Investor.

Hi Francis

I was wondering, why is Mercedes not using SPD anymore.

I think it came down to some delays that had crept into the vehicles that -- like the S- class, that the last version, we probably will be in the next one. And the fact that the other vehicles, which are the convertibles went to a canvas roof from a hard glass roof. So they don't have glass in the roof of any of their convertibles anymore.

You had spoken about windshields, what about supply chains to have them replaced? You can't certainly call Safelite.

You can. And actually, Safelite, I mean, I have fairly sophisticated windshields in my Mercedes that we have, we have a glass in our roof, but the windshield has all sorts of the antenna and ADAC systems and other things in it. And the Autoglass, if I understand your question right, the aftermarket replacement can basically handle this as well if they needed to because they're currently gearing up to become more adept at all types of advanced windshields, mostly in the ADAC area, where you have sensors and things embedded in the windshield.

You said the income has gone up 91, …. on how many percent since last quarter?

It was 91% since the fourth quarter and 40-something percent and 43%, I think it was since this quarter last year. And it's from the automotive and aircraft.

Were you aware of that before it happened? Or kind of was a surprise?

I was aware, I was aware.

What about next quarter?

I think we have to wait for the next conference call. As I said, I expect that this year, we're going to continue to reward shareholders. So I think everyone will be pleased with how things go this year.

This year, as in 2023.

Right.

Okay I look forward to it.

And at this time, there are no further questions. [indiscernible] to close out the call.

Sure. First of all, I want to welcome my new son in law Ezra to our family. You make my baby girl, Victoria, who's not such a baby, very happy. We had a recent wedding in the family. And also, to my good friend, Dennis, you sounded much better last time we spoke, and I wish you a complete and full recovery. To our shareholders, thank you for your support and your guidance. I do listen to your suggestions and appreciate them very much. And we're truly fortunate to have your support and encouragement . We couldn't have done what we have done without it. And perhaps to some new shareholders who invested in the SmartGlass industry because of either the investment tax credit from the recently enacted Dynamic Glass Act or see energy efficiency and carbon reduction in cars and buildings is an important goal. Hopefully, today, you have a better idea about the differences in smart glass technologies and the companies who bring them to you, and who to invest in. And I also want to thank our hard-working employees at Research Frontiers and our licensees. Today, the success we constantly work towards is being tangibly shown as we bring new products to the world to make people safer, more comfortable and which save energy and reduce carbon and other forms of pollution and simply make life better for tens of thousands of people each day and really, once again, I have to thank the hardworking people in our supply chain who do all this. One housekeeping reminder, we have our upcoming annual meeting in second Thursday in June. We have a fairly routine list of items on our annual meeting in 5 weeks from now. So please remember to vote your shares because we've had this conference call, I don't expect any real other business at that meeting other than the administrative business, but it's important that everyone votes. So I thank you all, and I look forward to sharing more good news with you again in August at our next investor conference call.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for attending.