Company: OCEA
Filing Date: 2025-04-08
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001641172-25-003155
Chunk: 2222

Company: Ocean Biomedical, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-04-08
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 2222
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 sell our product candidates and use our proprietary
technologies without infringing the proprietary rights of third parties. There is a substantial amount of litigation involving patents
and other intellectual property rights in the biotechnology and biopharmaceutical industries, as well as administrative proceedings for
challenging patents, including interference, derivation, inter partes review, post grant review, and reexamination proceedings before
the USPTO or oppositions and other comparable proceedings in foreign jurisdictions. We may be exposed to, or threatened with, future
litigation by third parties having patent or other intellectual property rights alleging that our product candidates and/or proprietary
technologies infringe their intellectual property rights. Numerous U.S. and foreign issued patents and pending patent applications, which
are owned by third parties, exist in the fields in which we are developing our product candidates. As the biotechnology and biopharmaceutical
industries expand and more patents are issued, the risk increases that our product candidates may give rise to claims of infringement
of the patent rights of others. Moreover, it is not always clear to industry participants, including us, which patents cover various
types of drugs, products or their methods of use or manufacture. Thus, because of the large number of patents issued and patent applications
filed in our fields, there may be a risk that third parties may allege they have patent rights encompassing our product candidates, technologies
or methods.

If
a third party claims that we infringe its intellectual property rights, we may face a number of issues, including, but not limited to:

    ●
    infringement
    and other intellectual property claims which, regardless of merit, may be expensive and time-consuming to litigate and may divert
    our management’s attention from our core business;

    ●
    substantial
    damages for infringement, which we may have to pay if a court decides that the product candidate or technology at issue infringes
    on or violates the third-party’s rights, and, if the court finds that the infringement was willful, we could be ordered to
    pay treble damages and the patent owner’s attorneys’ fees;

101

    ●
    a
    court prohibiting us from developing, manufacturing, marketing or selling our product candidates, or from using our proprietary technologies,
    unless the third-party licenses its product rights to us, which it is not required to do;

    ●
    if
    a license is available from a third-party, we may have to pay substantial royalties, upfront fees