Company: FTCI
Filing Date: 2025-03-31
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000950170-25-047224
Chunk: 54

Company: FTC Solar, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-03-31
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 54
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 our employees or third parties end their employment or engagement with us, and may not provide us with an adequate remedy in the event of such disclosure. Furthermore, competitors or other third parties may independently discover our trade secrets, copy or reverse engineer our products or services or portions thereof, or develop similar technology. If we fail to protect our intellectual property and other proprietary rights, or if such intellectual property and proprietary rights are infringed, misappropriated or otherwise violated, our business, results of operations or financial condition could be materially harmed.

We may need to defend ourselves against third-party claims that we are infringing, misappropriating or otherwise violating third-party intellectual property rights, which could divert management’s attention, cause us to incur significant costs and prevent us from selling or using the products, services or technologies to which such rights relate.

Our competitors and other third parties hold numerous patents related to technologies used in our industry, and may hold or obtain patents, copyrights, trademarks or other intellectual property rights that could prevent, limit or interfere with our ability to make, use, develop, sell or market our products and services, which could make it more difficult for us to operate our business. From time to time, we may be subject to claims of infringement, misappropriation or other violation of patents or other intellectual property rights or licensing fee and royalty claims and related litigation, and, if we gain greater recognition in the market, we face a higher risk of being the subject of these types of claims. For example, in early 2021 we learned that a claim had been filed against us seeking damages for alleged breach of contract and other claims related to a patent license agreement and consulting relationship, and the same plaintiff subsequently filed a separate lawsuit against us alleging a claim for patent infringement in respect of the same underlying technology. We reached a settlement agreement with the plaintiff in December 2022 in which we agreed to (i) pay an aggregate of $1.5 million in certain installments, and (ii) issue the plaintiff 79,740 (on a post-split basis) shares of our common stock, par value $0.0001 per share, in January 2023 valued at $2.0 million. We also agreed to an arrangement whereby we were granted a worldwide license under certain of the plaintiff's patents for an initial term of three years, subject to annual renewals at our option. 

Regardless of the merit of any claims that may be made against us, responding to such claims can be time consuming, can divert management’s attention and resources