Company: GDHLF
Filing Date: 2025-04-28
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0001410578-25-000935
Chunk: 67

Company: GDS Holdings Ltd
Filing Date: 2025-04-28
Form: 20-F
Item: Item 3
Chunk 67
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 property without authorization. The unauthorized use of intellectual property is common in mainland China and enforcement of intellectual property rights by PRC regulatory agencies is inconsistent. As a result, litigation may be necessary to enforce our intellectual property rights. Litigation could result in substantial costs and diversion of our management’s attention and resources, and could disrupt our business, as well as have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations. Given the complex and changing regulatory environment as well as potential difficulties in enforcing a court judgment in mainland China, there is no guarantee that we would be able to halt any unauthorized use of our intellectual property in mainland China through litigation.

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We may be subject to third-party claims of intellectual property infringement.

We derive most our revenues in mainland China and use, our figure trademarks, in a majority of our services. We have registered the figure trademark
in mainland China and the trademark
and
in Hong Kong in several categories that cover our services areas and we plan to register the figure trademark
in mainland China in certain additional categories. We have also registered the pure text of “ GDS”, “ 万国数据” as a trademark in several categories that cover our services areas, however, a third party has also registered the pure text of “ GDS”, “ 万国数据”as a trademark in certain IT-related services. As the services for which the third-party trademark is registered are also IT-related and could be construed as similar to ours in some respects, infringement claims may be asserted against us, and we cannot assure you that a government authority or a court will hold the view that such similarity will not cause confusion in the market. In this case, if we use the pure text of “ GDS”, “ 万国数据” (which we have not registered as a trademark with respect to all services we provide) as our trademark, we may be required to explore the possibility of acquiring this trademark or entering into an exclusive licensing agreement with the third party, which will cause us to incur additional costs. In addition, we may be unaware of intellectual property registrations or applications that purport to relate to our services, which could give rise to potential infringement claims against us. Parties making infringement claims may be able to obtain an injunction to prevent us from delivering our services or using trademark or technology containing the allegedly intellectual property. If we become liable to third parties for infringing upon their intellectual property rights, we could be required to pay a substantial damage award. We may also be subject to injunctions that require us to alter