Company: ST
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001477294-25-000022
Chunk: 21

Company: Sensata Technologies Holding plc
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 21
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 this process significantly increase the switching costs once a customer has designed and installed a particular sensor into a system.

We rely primarily on patents, trade secrets, manufacturing know-how, confidentiality procedures, and licensing arrangements to maintain and protect our intellectual property rights. While we consider our patents to be valuable assets, we do not believe that our overall competitive position is dependent on patent protection or that our overall business is dependent upon any single patent or group of related patents. Many of our patents protect specific functionality in our products, and others consist of processes or techniques that result in reduced manufacturing costs. 

The following table presents information on our patents and patent applications as of December 31, 2024:

U.S.Non-U.S.Patents301 650 Pending patent applications filed within the last five years107 326 

Our patents have expiration dates ranging over the next twenty years through 2045. We also own a portfolio of trademarks and license various patents and trademarks. "Sensata" and our logo are trademarks.

We use licensing arrangements with respect to certain technology provided in our sensor and electrical protection products. In 2006, we entered into a perpetual, royalty-free cross-license agreement with our former owner, Texas Instruments Incorporated, which permits each party to use specified technology owned by the other party in its business. No license may be terminated under the agreement, even in the event of a material breach.

Raw Materials

We use a broad range of manufactured components, subassemblies, and raw materials in the manufacture of our products in both our Performance Sensing and Sensing Solutions segments, including those containing certain commodities (e.g., semiconductors, resins, and metals), which may experience significant volatility in their price and availability due to, among other things: new laws or regulations, including labor laws and the impact of tariffs; trade barriers and disputes; global economic or political events, including government actions and labor strikes; suppliers' allocations to other purchasers; interruptions in production by suppliers; increased logistics costs; changes in foreign currency exchange rates; and prevailing price levels. 

Seasonality

Because of the diverse global nature of the markets in which we operate, our net revenue is only moderately impacted by seasonality. Sensing Solutions experiences some seasonality, specifically in its air conditioning and refrigeration products, which tend to peak in the first two quarters of the year as inventories are built up for spring and summer sales. In addition, Performance Sensing's net revenue tends to be weaker in the third quarter of the year as automotive OEMs