Company: HCWB
Filing Date: 2025-05-09
Form Type: S-1
Source: 0001193125-25-116745
Chunk: 68

Company: HCW Biologics Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-05-09
Form: S-1
Chunk 68
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 because of their substantially greater financial resources. Uncertainties resulting from the initiation and
continuation of patent litigation or other proceedings could have a material adverse effect on our ability to compete in the marketplace.

Intellectual property rights of third parties could adversely affect our ability to develop or commercialize our product candidates, such that we could be required to litigate or obtain licenses from third parties in order to develop or market our product candidates.

Our commercial
success depends, in part, on our ability to develop, manufacture, market, and sell our product candidates or any products, if approved, without infringing or otherwise violating the intellectual property and other proprietary rights of third
parties. Our competitive position may suffer if patents issued to third parties or other third-party intellectual property rights cover our methods or product candidates or elements thereof, our manufacture or uses relevant to our development plans,
our product candidates or other attributes of our product candidates, or our immunotherapy platform technology. In such cases, we may not be in a position to develop or commercialize product candidates unless we successfully pursue litigation to
nullify or invalidate the third-party intellectual property right concerned, which can be expensive and time-consuming, or have to enter into a license agreement with the intellectual property right holder, if available on commercially reasonable
terms at all.

There is a substantial amount of intellectual property litigation in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, and
we may become party to, or threatened with, litigation or other adversarial proceedings regarding intellectual property rights with respect to our product candidates. Parties making claims against us may seek and obtain injunctive or other equitable
relief, which could effectively block our ability to further develop and commercialize our product candidates. If we are sued for patent infringement, we would need to demonstrate that our product candidates or platform technology either do not
infringe the patent claims of a relevant patent or that the patent claims are invalid or unenforceable, and we may not be able to do this. Proving invalidity may be difficult. For example, in the United States, proving invalidity in court requires a
showing of clear and convincing evidence to overcome the presumption of validity enjoyed by issued patents. We may not have sufficient resources to bring these actions to a successful conclusion. If we are unable to successfully settle future claims
on terms acceptable to us, we may be required to engage or continue costly, unpredictable, and time- consuming litigation and may be prevented from or experience substantial delays in marketing our product candidates.

In addition, indemnity provisions in