Company: CERO
Filing Date: 2025-04-15
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001213900-25-032134
Chunk: 125

Company: CERO THERAPEUTICS HOLDINGS, INC.
Filing Date: 2025-04-15
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 125
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patent protection for our current and future product candidates. We seek to protect and enhance proprietary technology, inventions, and
improvements that are commercially important to the development of our business by seeking, maintaining, and defending our patent rights.
When available to expand market exclusivity, our strategy is to obtain or license additional intellectual property related to current
or contemplated development platforms, core elements of technology, and/or clinical candidates. We will also seek to rely on regulatory
protection afforded through inclusion in expedited development and review, data exclusivity, market exclusivity, and patent term extensions,
where available. In addition to patent protection, we also may rely on trademark registration, trade secrets, know-how, other proprietary
information, and continuing technological innovation to develop and maintain our competitive position. We seek to protect and maintain
the confidentiality of proprietary information to protect aspects of our business that are not amenable to, or that we do not consider
appropriate for, patent protection.

The term of individual patents
depends upon the legal term of the patents in the countries in which they are obtained. In most countries in which we file, including
the United States, the patent term is 20 years from the earliest date of filing a non-provisional patent application. In the United States,
a patent’s term may be lengthened by patent term adjustment, which compensates a patentee for administrative delays by the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) in examining and granting a patent, or may be shortened if a patent is terminally disclaimed
over an earlier filed patent. In the United States, the patent term of a patent that covers an FDA-approved drug may also be eligible
for patent term extension, which permits patent term restoration as compensation for the patent term lost during the FDA regulatory review
process. The Hatch-Waxman Act permits a patent term extension of up to five years beyond the expiration of the patent. The length of the
patent term extension is related to the length of time the drug is under regulatory review. Patent term extension cannot extend the remaining
term of a patent beyond a total of 14 years from the date of product approval, only one patent applicable to an approved drug may be extended,
and only those claims covering the approved drug, a method for using it, or a method for manufacturing it may be extended. Similar provisions
are available in Europe and other foreign jurisdictions to extend the term of a patent that covers an approved drug. In the future, if
and when