Company: CNTB
Filing Date: 2025-03-31
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001835268-25-000014
Chunk: 164

Company: Connect Biopharma Holdings Ltd
Filing Date: 2025-03-31
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 164
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 patent. If any third-party patents were held by a court of competent jurisdiction to be valid and enforceable and cover the manufacturing process of any of our current and future Product Candidates, any molecules formed during such manufacturing process, any final products resulting from such manufacturing process, or our formulations or methods of use thereof, including combination therapy, the holders of any such patents may be able to block our ability to develop and commercialize the applicable Product Candidate unless we obtained a license under the applicable patents, or until such patents expire. Such a license would likely include significant payment and other obligations, or may not be available on commercially reasonable terms or at all. Even if we were able to obtain such a license, it could be granted on non-exclusive terms, thereby providing our competitors and other third parties access to the same technologies licensed to us. In addition, we may be subject to claims that we are infringing, misappropriating or otherwise violating others’ intellectual property rights, such as trademarks, copyrights or trade secrets, and to the extent that our employees, consultants or contractors use intellectual property or proprietary information owned by others in their work for us, disputes may arise as to the rights in related or resulting know-how and inventions.

Parties making claims against us may obtain injunctive or other equitable relief, which could effectively block our ability to further develop and commercialize our current and future Product Candidates. Defense of these claims, regardless of their merit, would involve substantial litigation expense and would be a substantial diversion of employee resources from our business. In the event of a successful infringement or other intellectual property claim against us, we also may have to pay substantial damages, including treble damages and attorneys’ fees for willful infringement, obtain one or more licenses from third parties, pay royalties or redesign our affected products, which may be impossible or require substantial time and monetary expenditure. We cannot predict whether any such license would be available at all or whether it would be available on commercially reasonable terms. Furthermore, even in the absence of litigation, we may need to obtain licenses from third parties to advance our research or allow commercialization of our current and future Product Candidates, and we have done so from time to time. We may fail to obtain any of these licenses at a reasonable cost or on reasonable terms, if at all. As a result, we might be unable to further develop and commercialize any affected Product Candidates, which could harm our business significantly. Claims that we have misappropriated confidential information or trade secrets of third parties could have a similar negative impact on our business