Company: KROS
Filing Date: 2025-02-26
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001664710-25-000018
Chunk: 277

Company: Keros Therapeutics, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-02-26
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 277
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, further, may export otherwise infringing products to territories where we have patent protection but where enforcement is not as strong as that in the United States. These products may compete with our products, if approved, in jurisdictions where we do not have any issued patents and our patent claims or other intellectual property rights may not be effective or sufficient to prevent them from competing. 

Many companies have encountered significant problems in protecting and defending intellectual property rights in foreign jurisdictions. The legal systems of certain countries, particularly certain developing countries, do not favor the enforcement of patents, trade secrets and other intellectual property protection, particularly those relating to biopharmaceutical products, which could make it difficult for us to stop the infringement of our patents or marketing of competing products against third parties in violation of our proprietary rights generally. The initiation of proceedings by third parties to challenge the scope or validity of our patent rights in foreign jurisdictions could result in substantial cost and divert our efforts and attention from other aspects of our business. Proceedings to enforce our patent rights in foreign jurisdictions could result in substantial costs and divert our efforts and attention from other aspects of our business, could put our patents at risk of being invalidated or interpreted narrowly and our patent applications at risk of not issuing and could provoke third parties to assert claims against us. We may not prevail in any lawsuits that we initiate and the damages or other remedies awarded, if any, may not be commercially meaningful. Accordingly, our efforts to enforce our intellectual property rights around the world may be inadequate to obtain a significant commercial advantage from the intellectual property that we develop or license. 

We may incur substantial costs as a result of litigation or other proceedings relating to patents, and we may be unable to protect our rights to our products, if approved, and technology. 

If we or our licensing partners choose to go to court to stop a third party from using the inventions claimed in our owned or in-licensed patents, that third party may ask the court to rule that the patents are invalid and/or should not be enforced against that third party. These lawsuits are expensive and would consume time and other resources even if we or they, as the case may be, were successful in stopping the infringement of these patents. In addition, there is a risk that the court will decide that these patents are not valid and that we or they, as the case may be, do not have the right to stop others from using the inventions. 

There is also the risk that, even if the validity of these patents is upheld, the court will refuse to stop the third party on the