Company: SNY
Filing Date: 2025-02-13
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0001121404-25-000010
Chunk: 13

Company: Sanofi
Filing Date: 2025-02-13
Form: 20-F
Chunk 13
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 or biosimilars are increasingly seeking to challenge patent validity or coverage before the patents expire, and manufacturers of biosimilars or interchangeable versions of the products are seeking to have their version of the product approved before the exclusivity period ends. Furthermore, in an infringement suit against a third party, we may not prevail, and the decision rendered may not conclude that our patent or other proprietary rights are valid, enforceable, or infringed. Our competitors may also successfully avoid our patents. Even in cases where we ultimately prevail in an infringement claim, legal remedies available for harm caused to us by infringing products may be inadequate to make us whole. Moreover, a successful result against a competing product for a given patent or in a specific country is not necessarily predictive of our future success against another competing product or in another country because of local variations in the patents and patent laws. In addition, if we lose patent protection because of an adverse court decision or a settlement, we face the risk that government and private third-party payers and purchasers of pharmaceutical products may claim damages alleging they have over- reimbursed or overpaid for a drug. We also rely on unpatented proprietary technology, know-how, trade secrets and other confidential information, which we seek to protect through various measures, including confidentiality agreements with licensees, employees, third-party collaborators, and consultants who may have access to such information. If these agreements are breached or our other protective measures should fail, then our contractual or other remedies may not be adequate to cover our losses. In certain cases, to terminate or avoid patent litigation we or our collaboration partners may be required to obtain licenses from the holders of third-party intellectual property rights. Any payments under these licenses may reduce our profits from such products and we may not be able to obtain these licenses on favorable terms or at all. Third parties may also request a preliminary or permanent injunction in a country from a court of law to prevent us from marketing a product if they consider that we infringe their patent rights in that country. If third parties obtain a preliminary or permanent injunction or if we fail to obtain a required license for a country where valid third-party intellectual property rights as confirmed by a court of law exist, or if we are unable to alter the design of our technology to fall outside the scope of third-party intellectual property rights, we may be unable to market some of our products in certain countries, which may limit our profitability. In addition, the pursuit of valid business opportunities may require us to challenge intellectual property rights held by others that we believe were improperly