Company: FLDDW
Filing Date: 2025-03-28
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001013762-25-004107
Chunk: 291

Company: Fold Holdings, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-03-28
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 291
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 being narrowed in scope or declared invalid or unenforceable.
There can be no assurance that our intellectual property rights will be sufficient to protect against others offering products, services,
or technologies that are substantially similar to ours and that compete with our business.

Effective protection of our intellectual property
may be expensive and difficult to maintain, both in terms of application and registration costs as well as the costs of defending and
enforcing those rights. As we have grown, we have sought to obtain and protect our intellectual property rights in an increasing number
of countries, a process that can be expensive and may not always be successful. Further, intellectual property protection may not be available
to us in every country in which our products and services may become available.

We may be sued by third parties for alleged infringement of their
intellectual property rights.

In recent years, there has been considerable
patent, copyright, trademark, domain name, trade secret and other intellectual property development activity in the cryptocurrency and
payments industries, as well as litigation, based on allegations of infringement or other violations of intellectual property, including
by large financial institutions. Furthermore, individuals and groups can purchase patents and other intellectual property assets for the
purpose of making claims of infringement to extract settlements from companies like ours. Our use of third-party intellectual property
rights also may be subject to claims of infringement. We cannot guarantee that our internally developed or acquired technologies and content
do not or will not infringe or otherwise violate the intellectual property rights of others. From time to time, our competitors or other
third parties may claim that we are infringing or have misappropriated their intellectual property rights, and we may be found liable
as a result. Any claims or litigation, whether having merit or not, could cause us to incur significant expenses and may be time consuming
to defend. And if any such claims are successfully asserted against us, we could be required to pay substantial damages or ongoing royalty
payments, we could be prevented from offering our products or services or using certain technologies, or we could be forced to implement
expensive work-arounds. We expect that the occurrence of infringement claims related to our Bitcoin related products and services is likely
to grow as the Bitcoin market grows and matures. Accordingly, our exposure to damages resulting from infringement claims could increase
and potentially exhaust our financial and management resources. Further, during the course of any litigation, we may make announcements
regarding the results of hearings and motions, and other interim developments. If securities analysts and investors regard these