Company: CRCL
Filing Date: 2025-02-13
Form Type: DRS/A
Source: 0000950123-25-001965
Chunk: 103

Company: Circle Internet Group, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-02-13
Form: DRS/A
Chunk 103
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 may vary in scope of coverage depending on the
country in which such patents issue.

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. For example, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and various foreign governmental intellectual property agencies require

64

CONFIDENTIAL TREATMENT REQUESTED BY CIRCLE INTERNET GROUP, INC. PURSUANT TO 17 C.F.R. § 200.83

compliance with a number of procedural requirements to complete the trademark application
process and to maintain issued trademarks. Noncompliance with these procedural requirements or nonpayment could result in abandonment or lapse of a trademark or trademark application, resulting in partial or complete loss of trademark rights in a
relevant jurisdiction. In addition, a failure by us to sufficiently exploit any of our trademarks in any markets could erode our trademark rights with respect to the relevant trademarks.

Further, intellectual property protection may not be available to us in every country in which our products and services are available, and the laws of certain countries
do not protect proprietary rights to the same degree as the laws of the United States. Therefore, in certain jurisdictions, we may be unable to protect our intellectual property adequately against unauthorized third-party copying, infringement, or
use, which could adversely affect our competitive position. We may also agree to license our intellectual property to third parties as part of various agreements. See “Business—Intellectual property.” Those licenses may diminish our
ability to counter-assert our intellectual property rights against certain parties that may bring claims against us.

Finally, some of our business and some of our
products rely or may in the future rely on key technologies developed or licensed by third parties. Because of the rapid pace of technological change in the information technology industry, we may not be able to obtain or continue to obtain licenses
and technologies from relevant third parties on reasonable terms, or at all.

Our Collaboration Agreement with Coinbase could cause us to lose ownership or use of our trademarks upon the occurrence of certain events.

In August 2023, we entered into a Collaboration Agreement (the “Collaboration Agreement”)
and an Intellectual Property License Agreement with Coinbase, which contain provisions requiring the assignment of certain of our intellectual property rights to Coinbase upon the occurrence of certain events. Specifically, if (i) we determine
in good faith that the payment provisions under the Collaboration Agreement with respect to USDC or other applicable Circle stablecoin (such stable