Company: MTCH
Filing Date: 2025-02-27
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000891103-25-000027
Chunk: 116

Company: Match Group, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-02-27
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 116
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 and consumer confidence and spending, and adversely affected users’ ability to pay for our services.

The ultimate extent of the impact of any epidemic, pandemic, or other health crisis on our business will depend on multiple factors that are highly uncertain and cannot be predicted, including its severity, location, and duration, and actions taken to contain or further prevent its spread. Additionally, pandemics could increase the magnitude of many of the other risks described in this annual report, and have other adverse effects on our operations that we are not currently able to predict. If our business and the markets in which we operate experience a prolonged occurrence of adverse public health conditions, it could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

We may fail to adequately protect our intellectual property rights or may be accused of infringing the intellectual property rights of third parties.

We rely heavily upon our trademarks and related domain names and logos to market our brands and to build and maintain brand loyalty and recognition. We also rely upon patented and patent-pending proprietary technologies and trade secrets relating to our services.

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We rely on a combination of laws as well as contractual restrictions with employees, customers, suppliers, and others, to establish and protect our intellectual property rights. For example, we have generally registered and continue to apply to register and renew, or secure by contract where appropriate, trademarks and service marks as they are developed and used, and reserve, register, and renew domain names as we deem appropriate. Effective trademark protection may not be available or sought in every country in which our services are made available, and contractual disputes may affect the use of marks governed by private contract. Similarly, not every variation of a domain name may be available or registered, even if available.

We generally seek to apply for patents or other similar statutory protections as and when we deem appropriate, based on then-current facts and circumstances, and will continue to do so in the future. No assurances can be given that any patent application we have filed or will file will result in a patent being issued, or that any existing or future patents will afford adequate protection against competitors and similar technologies. In addition, no assurances can be given that third parties will not create new products or methods that achieve similar results without infringing upon patents we own.

Despite these measures, our intellectual property rights may still not be protected in a meaningful manner, challenges to contractual rights could arise, third parties could copy or otherwise obtain and use our intellectual property without authorization, our existing trademarks, patents, or trade secrets can be, and, on rare