Company: HCWB
Filing Date: 2025-04-07
Form Type: S-1
Source: 0001193125-25-073723
Chunk: 68

Company: HCW Biologics Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-04-07
Form: S-1
Chunk 68
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 suffer.

We are and may become subject to claims challenging the inventorship or ownership of our patents and other intellectual property.

We generally enter into
confidentiality and intellectual property assignment agreements with our employees, consultants, and contractors. These agreements generally provide that inventions conceived by the party in the course of rendering services to us will be our
exclusive property. However, those agreements may not be honored and may not effectively assign intellectual property rights to us. Moreover, there may be some circumstances, where we are unable to negotiate for such ownership rights. Disputes
regarding ownership or inventorship of intellectual property can also arise in other contexts, such as collaborations and sponsored research. Disputes challenging our rights in or to patents or other intellectual property, such as the lawsuit as we
are currently facing in our legal proceedings with Altor/NantCell, have been and could be expensive and time consuming. If we were unsuccessful, we could lose valuable rights in intellectual property that we regard as our own. In addition,
interferences, post-grant proceedings, opposition proceedings, derivation proceedings, or other intellectual property proceedings provoked by third parties or brought by us or declared by the USPTO may be necessary to determine the priority of
inventions with respect to our patents or patent applications.

The failure to name the proper inventors on a patent application can result
in the patents issuing thereon being unenforceable. Inventorship disputes may arise from conflicting views regarding the contributions of different individuals named as inventors, the effects of foreign laws where foreign nationals are involved in
the development of the subject matter of the patent, conflicting obligations of third parties involved in developing our product candidates or as a result of questions regarding co-ownership of potential joint
inventions. Litigation may be necessary to resolve these and other claims challenging inventorship and/or ownership. Alternatively, or

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additionally, we may enter into agreements to clarify the scope of our rights in such intellectual property. If we fail in defending any such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we
may lose valuable intellectual property rights, such as exclusive ownership of, or right to use, valuable intellectual property. Such an outcome could have a material adverse effect on our business. Even if we are successful in defending against
such claims, litigation could result in substantial costs and be a distraction to management and other employees.

We may rely on trade secret and proprietary know-how,which can be difficult to trace and enforce and, if we are unable to protect the confidentiality of our