Company: PGEN
Filing Date: 2025-03-19
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001356090-25-000007
Chunk: 91

Company: PRECIGEN, INC.
Filing Date: 2025-03-19
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 91
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 of our intellectual property in the United States and abroad for our suite of technologies and product candidates. We have adopted a strategy of seeking patent protection in the United States and abroad with respect to certain of the technologies used in or relating to our technologies and product pipeline. We have also in-licensed rights to additional patents and pending patent applications in the United States and abroad. We intend to continue to apply for patents relating to our technologies, methods, and products as we deem appropriate.

For instance, we pursue protection of switch technologies, gene delivery technologies, and genetic componentry related to our pipeline products. In addition, we seek patents covering specific collaborator's products. We have also filed patents and patent applications in other jurisdictions, such as Australia, Canada, China, Europe, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Japan, Korea and South Africa. In the future we may file in these or additional jurisdictions as deemed appropriate for the protection of our technologies.

The enforceability of patents, as well as the actual patent term and expiration thereof, involves complex legal and factual questions and, therefore, the extent of enforceability cannot be guaranteed. Issued patents and patents issuing from pending applications may be challenged, invalidated, or circumvented. Moreover, the United States Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, enacted in September 2011, brought significant changes to the United States patent system, which include a change to a "first to file" system from a "first to invent" system and changes to the procedures for challenging issued patents and disputing patent applications during the examination process, among other things. These changes could increase the costs and uncertainties surrounding the prosecution of our patent applications and the enforcement or defense of our patent rights. Additional uncertainty may result from legal precedent handed down by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and United States Supreme Court as they determine legal issues concerning the scope and construction of patent claims and inconsistent interpretation of patent laws by the lower courts. Accordingly, we cannot ensure that any of our pending patent applications will result in issued patents, or even if issued, predict the breadth of the claims upheld in our and other companies' patents. Given that the degree of future protection for our proprietary rights is uncertain, we cannot ensure that we were the first to invent the inventions covered by our pending patent applications; we were the first to file patent applications for these inventions; the patents we have obtained, particularly certain patents claiming nucleic acids, proteins, or methods, are valid and enforceable; and the proprietary technologies we develop will be patentable.

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