Company: OFIX
Filing Date: 2025-02-25
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000950170-25-026066
Chunk: 148

Company: Orthofix Medical Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-02-25
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 148
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 adequate protection or competitive advantages for our products. Patents that are issued may be challenged, invalidated, or circumvented by our competitors or other parties. Furthermore, our patent rights may not prevent our competitors or other parties from developing, using, or commercializing products that are similar or functionally equivalent to our products. Moreover, if patents are not issued with respect to our products arising from research, we may not be able to maintain the confidentiality of information relating to these products. In addition, if a patent relating to any of our products lapses or is invalidated, we may experience greater competition arising from new market entrants.

We also rely on trade secrets, unpatented proprietary expertise, and continuing technological innovation that we protect, in part, by entering into confidentiality agreements with assignors, licensees, suppliers, employees, and consultants. These agreements may be breached and there may not be adequate remedies in the event of a breach. Disputes may arise concerning the ownership of intellectual property or the applicability or enforceability of confidentiality agreements. Moreover, our trade secrets and proprietary technology may otherwise become known or be independently developed by our competitors or other parties.

In addition to contractual measures, we try to protect the confidential nature of our proprietary information using physical and technological security measures. Such measures may not, for example, in the case of misappropriation of a trade secret by an employee or third party with authorized access, adequately protect our proprietary information. Our security measures may not prevent an employee or consultant from misappropriating our trade secrets and providing them to a competitor or other third party, and recourse we take against such misconduct may not provide an adequate remedy to protect our interests fully. Unauthorized parties may also attempt to copy or reverse engineer certain aspects of our products that we consider proprietary. Enforcing a claim that a party illegally disclosed or misappropriated a trade secret can be difficult, expensive, and time-consuming, and the outcome is unpredictable.

We may face claims by third parties that our agreements with employees, consultants, or advisors obligating them to assign intellectual property to us are ineffective or in conflict with prior or competing contractual obligations of assignment, which could result in ownership disputes regarding intellectual property we have developed or will develop and interfere with our ability to capture the commercial value of such intellectual property. Litigation may be necessary to resolve an ownership dispute, and if we are unsuccessful, we may be precluded from using certain intellectual property or may lose our exclusive rights in that intellectual property. Either outcome could harm our business and competitive position.

Furthermore, the laws