Company: CRCL
Filing Date: 2025-04-01
Form Type: S-1
Source: 0001193125-25-070481
Chunk: 228

Company: Circle Internet Group, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-04-01
Form: S-1
Chunk 228
---
 stay. At the same time, it is possible that a U.S. court, in the case of USDC, or a French court, in the case of EURC, could instead determine that the reserve assets backing USDC and EURC, respectively,
are property of our bankruptcy estate. If this were to happen, other creditors of Circle may be able to obtain recoveries from the underlying reserve assets and holders of Circle stablecoins could be treated as general unsecured creditors of Circle,
which could result in Circle stablecoin holders receiving only partial recoveries rather than the full purported value of their stablecoin holdings.

We will
continue to monitor legal, regulatory, and other developments in order to take reasonable and appropriate steps to continue the safeguarding of Circle stablecoin reserves.

159

Intellectual property

The
protection of our technology and intellectual property is an important aspect of our business. We rely upon a combination of trademark, patent, trade secret, and copyright laws in the United States and similar laws in other countries, as well as
confidentiality procedures, contractual commitments, and other legal rights to establish, maintain, and protect our intellectual property and proprietary rights. We have an active program of establishing, maintaining, and protecting our intellectual
property and proprietary rights, including our proprietary technology, through the filing of patents, registration of trademarks, and use of contractual measures and other intellectual property rights. We generally enter into agreements with our
employees, consultants, contractors, and other third parties that include confidentiality and nondisclosure provisions in order to limit access to, and disclosure and use of, our confidential information, trade secrets, know-how, and proprietary technology. Those agreements also often include invention or work product assignment provisions to establish, maintain, and protect our brand and other intellectual property rights. We may
also agree to license our intellectual property to third parties as part of various agreements.

As of December 31, 2024, we have 19 issued patents in the
United States and filed 41 nonprovisional patent applications in the United States, as well as 35 patent applications in foreign jurisdictions, with respect to our technology. We held 20 registered trademarks in the United States, including the
Circle name and Circle logo, and also held 324 registered trademarks in foreign jurisdictions. We also had 11 pending trademark applications in the United States, as well as 82 pending trademark applications in foreign jurisdictions. We intend to
file additional trademark applications with respect to our brands.

Intellectual property laws, procedures, and restrictions