Company: PRME
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001628280-25-008884
Chunk: 146

Company: Prime Medicine, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 146
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We have limited foreign intellectual property rights and may not be able to protect our intellectual property and proprietary rights throughout the world.

We currently have in-licensed one ex-U.S. granted patent that covers Prime Editing components and methods of use. Although we own and have in-licensed numerous ex-U.S. patent applications, we have limited intellectual property rights outside the United States. Filing, prosecuting and defending patents on our Prime Editing technologies and product candidates in all countries throughout the world would be prohibitively expensive and our intellectual property rights in some countries outside the United States can be less extensive than those in the United States. The laws of foreign countries do not protect intellectual property rights to the same extent as federal and state laws of the United States, even in jurisdictions where we or our licensors do pursue patent protection. In addition, our intellectual property license agreements may not always include worldwide rights. Consequently, we or our licensors may not be able to prevent third parties from practicing our inventions in all countries outside the United States, or from selling or importing products made using our inventions in and into the United States or other jurisdictions. Third parties may use our technologies in jurisdictions where we have not obtained patent protection to develop their own products and, further, may export otherwise infringing products to territories where we have patent protection but where enforcement is not as strong as that in the United States. These products may compete with our product candidates and patents that may issue from our or our licensors’ pending patent applications or other intellectual property rights may not be effective or sufficient to prevent them from competing.

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Many companies have encountered significant problems in protecting and defending intellectual property rights in foreign jurisdictions. The legal systems of certain countries, particularly certain developing countries, do not favor the enforcement of patents, trade secrets and other intellectual property protection, particularly those relating to biotechnology and pharmaceutical products, which could make it difficult for us to stop the infringement of our future patents or marketing of competing products by third parties in violation of our intellectual property and proprietary rights generally. Proceedings to enforce our future patents or our licensors’ patent or future patents and intellectual property rights in foreign jurisdictions could result in substantial costs and divert our efforts and attention from other aspects of our business, could put our future patents or our licensors’ patent or future patents at risk of being invalidated or interpreted narrowly and our or our licensors’ patent applications at risk of not issuing and could provoke third parties to assert claims against us or our licensors. We may not prevail in any lawsuits that we or our licensors initiate, and the damages or