Company: IPGP
Filing Date: 2025-02-20
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001111928-25-000023
Chunk: 63

Company: IPG PHOTONICS CORP
Filing Date: 2025-02-20
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 63
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 and introduce custom products and laser processing that address specific applications and performance requirements.

We incurred research and development costs of approximately $109.8 million, $98.7 million and $116.1 million for the years ended December 31, 2024, 2023 and 2022, respectively. We expect to continue our commitment to research and development and to introduce new products, systems and complementary products. See Item 7, "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations."

Intellectual Property

We rely on the technical expertise, creativity, and knowledge of our personnel, and we utilize trade secret, patent, trademark, copyright and contractual protections to maintain our competitive position and protect our proprietary rights in our products and technology. While our intellectual property rights are important to our success, we believe that our business as a whole is not materially dependent on any particular patent, trademark, copyright or other intellectual property right. IPG has used, registered or applied to register a number of trademark registrations in the United States and in other countries.

As of December 31, 2024, we have over 850 patents issued and over 350 pending patent applications worldwide. Intellectual property rights, including those that we own, those that we license and those of others, involve significant risks. See Item 1A, "Risk Factors — We are subject to litigation alleging that we infringe third-party intellectual property rights. Intellectual property claims could result in costly litigation and harm our business." and "Risk Factors — Our inability to protect our intellectual property and proprietary technologies could result in the unauthorized use of our technologies by third parties, hurt our competitive position and adversely affect our operating results."

Manufacturing

Vertical integration is one of our core business strategies through which we control our proprietary processes and technologies as well as the supply of key components and assemblies. Our vertically integrated manufacturing operations include the manufacturing or assembly of optical preforms, specialty fiber, semiconductor wafers, semiconductor diode chips and packaged semiconductor diodes, specialty optical components, fiber blocks, fiber laser modules, power supplies, circuit boards, electronics and control systems and software, crystals, chillers, housings and cabinets and final assembly of finished product. In addition, we make some of the automated production systems, tools and fixtures and testing systems that we use in our own manufacturing processes. Over the last several years, we added additional production capabilities, including multi-wafer growth reactors, diode test stations, fiber preform and fiber drawing equipment and mid and high power laser production and testing