Company: PRME
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001628280-25-008884
Chunk: 133

Company: Prime Medicine, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 133
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 that we or our licensors were the first to make the inventions claimed in our owned or licensed pending patent applications or in-licensed issued patents, or that we or our licensors were the first to file for patent protection of such inventions. If a third party can establish that we or our licensors were not the first to make or the first to file for patent protection of such inventions, our owned or licensed patent applications may not issue as patents and even if issued, may be challenged and invalidated or rendered unenforceable. 

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The patent position of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies generally is highly uncertain, involves complex legal and factual questions and has been the subject of much litigation in recent years. The field of genome editing has been the subject of extensive patenting activity and litigation. As a result, the issuance, scope, validity, enforceability and commercial value of our patent rights are highly uncertain and we may become involved in complex and costly litigation. Our pending and future patent applications may not result in patents being issued which protect our Prime Editing technology and product candidates we may develop or which effectively prevent others from commercializing competitive technologies and product candidates. For example, our provisional applications may never result in issued patents. A provisional patent application is not eligible to become an issued patent until, among other things, we file a non-provisional patent application within 12 months of filing the related provisional patent application. If we do not timely file non-provisional patent applications, we may lose our priority dates with respect to our provisional patent applications and any patent protection on the inventions disclosed in our provisional patent applications. While we intend to timely file non-provisional patent applications relating to our provisional patent applications, we cannot predict whether any of our patent applications for our technology and product candidates will result in the issuance of patents that effectively protect our technology and product candidates. Any failure to obtain or maintain patent protection with respect to our technology and product candidates would have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

No consistent policy regarding the scope of claims allowable in the field of genome editing, including for Prime Editing technology, has emerged in the United States. The scope of patent protection outside of the United States is also uncertain. Changes in either the patent laws or their interpretation in the United States and other countries may diminish our ability to protect our inventions, obtain, maintain, enforce and defend our intellectual property rights and, more generally, could affect the value of our intellectual property or narrow the scope of our owned and licensed patent rights. With respect to