Company: NGVC
Filing Date: 2025-12-11
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001437749-25-037556
Chunk: 19

Company: Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-12-11
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 19
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 risk, vehicle liability and employee health-care benefits. There are types of losses we may incur that cannot be insured against or that we believe are not economically reasonable to insure. Such losses could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations. In addition, liabilities associated with the risks that are retained by us are estimated, in part, by considering historical claims experience, demographic factors, severity factors and other actuarial assumptions. Our results could be materially impacted by claims and other expenses related to such plans if future occurrences and claims differ from these assumptions and historical trends.

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If we are unable to protect our intellectual property rights, our ability to compete and the value of our brand could be harmed.

We believe that our trademarks or service marks, trade dress, copyrights, trade secrets, know-how and similar intellectual property are important to our success. In particular, we believe that the Natural Grocers name is important to our business, as well as to the implementation of our growth strategy. Our principal intellectual property rights include registered marks on Natural Grocers®, Vitamin Cottage®, Health Hotline®, Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage®, Vitamin Cottage Natural Grocers®, EDAP - Every Day Affordable Price®, {N}power®, Organic Headquarters®, Organic Month Headquarters®, Organic Produce Headquarters®, Natural Grocers Cottage Wine and Craft Beer®, Natural Grocers Cottage Craft Beer®, Resolution Reset Day®, Resolution Reset Week®, These Came First® and Natural Grocers Top 10 Nutrition Trends®, common law intellectual property rights in certain other marks used in our business, copyrights of our website content, rights to our domain names, including www.naturalgrocers.com and www.vitamincottage.com, and trade secrets and know-how with respect to our product sourcing, sales and marketing and other aspects of our business. As such, we rely on trademark or service mark and copyright law, trade secret protection and confidentiality agreements with our Crew members and certain of our consultants, suppliers and others to protect our proprietary rights. If we are unable to defend or protect or preserve the value of our trademarks or service marks, copyrights, trade secrets or other proprietary rights for any reason, our brand and reputation could be impaired and we could lose customers.

Although several of our brand names are registered in the United States, we may not be successful in asserting trademark or service mark or trade name protection and the costs required to protect our trademarks or service marks and trade names may be substantial. In addition, the relationship between regulations governing domain names and laws protecting trademarks or service marks and similar proprietary rights is unclear.