Company: IMCR
Filing Date: 2025-02-26
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001671927-25-000006
Chunk: 41

Company: Immunocore Holdings plc
Filing Date: 2025-02-26
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 41
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 be allowed or enforced in our patents. Any issued patents that we may receive in the future may be challenged, invalidated, narrowed, held unenforceable, infringed or circumvented. In addition, because of the extensive time required for clinical development and regulatory review of a product candidate we may develop, it is possible that, before any of our product candidates can be commercialized, any related patent may expire or remain in force for only a short period following commercialization, thereby limiting the protection such patent would afford the respective product and any competitive advantage such patent may provide. See “Item 1A. Risk Factors—Risks Related to Intellectual Property.”

Trade secrets

In addition to patent protections, we rely upon trade secrets and know-how and continuing technological innovation to develop and maintain our competitive position. However, trade secrets and know-how can be difficult to protect. We seek to protect our proprietary information, in part, by using confidentiality agreements with our collaborators, employees and consultants and invention assignment agreements with our employees. We also have confidentiality agreements and invention assignment agreements with our collaborators and consultants as required. These agreements are designed to protect our proprietary information and, in the case of the invention assignment agreements, to grant us ownership of technologies that are developed through a relationship with a third party. We cannot guarantee, however, that we have executed such agreements with all applicable counterparties. Furthermore, these agreements may be breached, and we may not have adequate remedies for any breach. In addition, our trade secrets may otherwise become known or be independently discovered by competitors and other third parties. To the extent that our collaborators, employees and consultants use intellectual property owned by others in their work for us, disputes may arise as to the rights in related or resulting know-how and inventions. For more information, please see “Item 1A. Risk Factors—Risks Related to Intellectual Property.”

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Third-party rights

Our commercial success will also depend in part on any risk associated with potential infringement upon the proprietary rights of third parties. It is uncertain whether the issuance of any third-party patent would require us to alter our development or commercial strategies, or our product candidates or processes, obtain licenses or cease certain activities. Our breach of any license agreements or failure to obtain a license to proprietary rights that we may require to develop or commercialize our current or future product candidates may have an adverse impact on us. For more information, please see “Item 1A. Risk Factors—Risks Related to Intellectual Property.”

Trademarks

As of December