Company: TALK
Filing Date: 2025-03-12
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000950170-25-038107
Chunk: 55

Company: Talkspace, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-03-12
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 55
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, we are subject to the regulations imposed by the FCPA, which generally prohibits U.S. companies and their intermediaries from making improper payments to foreign officials for the purpose of obtaining or maintaining business. As a result, the Company faces the risk that an unauthorized payment or offer of payment could be made by one of its employees or intermediaries, even if such parties are not always subject to the Company’s control or are not themselves subject to the FCPA or other similar laws to which the Company may be subject. Any allegation or determination that the Company has violated the FCPA (or any other applicable anti-bribery laws in countries in which the Company does business, including the U.K. Bribery Act 2010) could have a material adverse effect on the Company’s business, financial position, results of operations, cash flows and prospects.

29

RISKS RELATED TO OUR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Any failure to protect, enforce or defend our intellectual property rights could impair our ability to protect our technology and our brand. 

Our success depends in part on our ability to maintain, protect and enforce our intellectual property and other proprietary rights. We rely upon a combination of trademark, patent and trade secret laws, as well as license and access agreements and other contractual provisions, to protect our intellectual property rights. These laws, procedures and agreements provide only limited protection and any of our intellectual property rights may be challenged, invalidated, circumvented, infringed, diluted or misappropriated. 

We attempt to protect our intellectual property and proprietary information by requiring our employees, consultants and certain of our contractors to execute confidentiality and assignment of inventions agreements. However, we may not obtain these agreements in all circumstances, and individuals with whom we have these agreements may not comply with their terms. The assignment of intellectual property rights under these agreements may not be self-executing or the assignment agreements may be breached, and we may be forced to bring claims against third parties, or defend claims that they may bring against us, to determine the ownership of what we regard as our intellectual property. In addition, we may not be able to prevent the unauthorized disclosure or use of our technical know-how or other trade secrets by the parties to these agreements despite the existence generally of confidentiality agreements and other contractual restrictions. 

Monitoring unauthorized uses and disclosures is difficult and we do not know whether the steps we have taken to protect our proprietary technologies will be effective. Additionally, if a competitor lawfully obtains or independently develops the technology we maintain as a trade secret, we would have no