Company: CERO
Filing Date: 2025-04-15
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001213900-25-032134
Chunk: 1683

Company: CERO THERAPEUTICS HOLDINGS, INC.
Filing Date: 2025-04-15
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 1683
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 In addition, we may not be granted an extension because of, for example, failing to apply within applicable deadlines, failing
to apply prior to the expiration of relevant patents or otherwise failing to satisfy applicable requirements. The terms of our patents
may also be affected by the filing of terminal disclaimers during prosecution before the USPTO and foreign authorities recognizing similar
disclaimer mechanisms. A patent subject to a terminal disclaimer may have its term limited so that its lifespan does not extend beyond
the term of a related patent having a shorter term. If any of the foregoing occurs, any period during which we have the right to exclusively
market our product will be shorter than we would otherwise have expected, and our competitors may obtain approval of and launch products
earlier than might otherwise have been the case.

82

The life of patent protection is limited,
and third parties could develop and commercialize products and technologies similar or identical to ours and compete directly with us
after a patent licensed to us expires, which could materially and adversely affect our ability to commercialize our products and technologies.

The life of a patent and
the protection it affords is limited. For example, in the United States, if all maintenance fees are timely paid, the natural expiration
of a patent is generally 20 years from its earliest U.S. non-provisional filing date. In Europe, the expiration of an invention patent
is 20 years from its filing date. Even if we successfully obtain patent protection for an approved product candidate, it may face competition
from biosimilar medications. Manufacturers of other drugs may challenge the scope, validity or enforceability of the patents underlying
our technology in court or before a patent office, and the patent holder may not be successful in enforcing or defending those intellectual
property rights and, as a result, we may not be able to develop or market the relevant product candidate exclusively, which would materially
adversely affect any potential sales of that product.

Given the amount of time
required for the development, testing and regulatory review of new product candidates, patents protecting such product candidates might
expire before or shortly after such product candidates are commercialized. As a result, the patents or pending applications licensed to
us may not provide us with sufficient rights to exclude others from commercializing products similar or identical to ours. Even if we
believe that the patents involved are eligible for certain (and time-limited) patent term extensions, there can be no assurance that the
applicable authorities, including the FDA and the USPTO