Company: CERO
Filing Date: 2025-04-15
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001213900-25-032134
Chunk: 226

Company: CERO THERAPEUTICS HOLDINGS, INC.
Filing Date: 2025-04-15
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 226
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 these licenses
at a reasonable cost or on reasonable terms, if at all, which would harm our business. We may need to cease use of the compositions or
methods covered by such third-party intellectual property rights, and may need to seek to develop alternative approaches that do not infringe
on such intellectual property rights which may entail additional costs and development delays, even if we were able to develop such alternatives,
which may not be feasible. Even if we are able to obtain a license, it may be non-exclusive, thereby giving our competitors access to
the same technologies licensed to us. In that event, we may be required to expend significant time and resources to develop or license
replacement technology. Moreover, the specific antibodies that will be used with our product candidates may be covered by the intellectual
property rights of others.

Additionally, we may collaborate
with academic institutions to accelerate our preclinical research or development under written agreements with these institutions. In
certain cases, these institutions may provide us with an option to negotiate a license to any of the institution’s rights in technology
resulting from the collaboration. Regardless of such option, we may be unable to negotiate a license within the specified timeframe or
under terms that are acceptable to us. If we are unable to do so, the institution may offer the intellectual property rights to others,
potentially blocking our ability to pursue our program. If we are unable to successfully obtain rights to required third-party intellectual
property or to maintain the existing intellectual property rights we have, we may have to abandon development of such program and our
business and financial condition could suffer.

The licensing and acquisition
of third-party intellectual property rights is a competitive area, and companies which may be more established, or have greater resources
than we do, may also be pursuing strategies to license or acquire third-party intellectual property rights that we may consider necessary
or attractive in order to commercialize our product candidates. More established companies may have a competitive advantage over us due
to their size, cash resources and greater clinical development and commercialization capabilities.

78

We may be involved in lawsuits to protect
or enforce our patents which could be expensive, time-consuming and unsuccessful.

Competitors may infringe
our patents. To counter infringement or unauthorized use, we may be required to file infringement claims, which can be expensive and time-consuming.
In addition, in a legal proceeding, a court may decide that one or more of our patents is not valid or is unenforceable or may refuse
to stop the other party from using