Company: NOC
Filing Date: 2025-01-30
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001133421-25-000006
Chunk: 67

Company: NORTHROP GRUMMAN CORP /DE/
Filing Date: 2025-01-30
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 67
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 insurance may not be reasonably available. Under some circumstances, the U.S. government and prime contractors may provide for certain indemnification and other protection, including pursuant to, or in connection with, Public Law 85-804, 10 U.S.C. 3861, the Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act, the NASA Space Act, the Commercial Space Launch Act and the Terrorism Risk Insurance Reauthorization Act, for certain risks, but those protections may not be available or adequate.

Certain of our products, such as medium and large caliber ammunition and propulsion systems, involve the use, manufacture and/or handling of a variety of explosive and flammable materials or other hazardous substances. These activities have resulted and may result in incidents that cause workplace injuries and fatalities, the temporary shut down or other disruption of manufacturing, production delays, environmental harm and expense, fines and liabilities to third parties. We have safety and loss prevention programs, which provide for pre-construction reviews, along with safety audits of operations involving explosive materials, to attempt to avoid or mitigate some such incidents, as well as potentially insurance coverage and indemnification to address resulting liabilities, but they may not be successful.

In addition, our customers may use, handle or test our products and services in ways that can be unusually hazardous or risky, or in ways that are not intended, not authorized or inconsistent with guidance and warnings, which may create potential liabilities for our company, as well as reputational harm. 

•We may not be able to adequately protect and fully exploit our intellectual property rights or obtain necessary rights to intellectual property of others, which could materially and adversely affect our ability to compete and perform on contracts, and have a material adverse effect on our reputation and our financial position, results of operations and/or cash flows.

To perform on our contracts and to win new business, we depend on our ability to develop, protect and exploit our intellectual property and use the intellectual property of others. Increasing demands from our customers to access and obtain rights in our intellectual property, and positions taken by our suppliers and competitors challenge our ability to protect and exploit intellectual property.

We own many forms of intellectual property, including trade secrets, U.S. and foreign patents, trademarks, and copyrights, and we license or otherwise obtain access to various intellectual property rights of third parties. The U.S. government and certain foreign governments hold licenses or other rights to certain intellectual property that we develop in performance of government contracts, and at times seek to use or authorize others to use such intellectual property, including in competition with us.