Company: BOLT
Filing Date: 2025-03-24
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000950170-25-043873
Chunk: 102

Company: Bolt Biotherapeutics, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-03-24
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 102
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 our licensors or collaborators’ ability to obtain patents in the future, as well as uncertainty with respect to the value of patents once obtained. 

Recent patent reform legislation could increase the uncertainties and costs surrounding the prosecution of our and our licensors or collaborators’ patent applications and the enforcement or defense of our or our licensors or collaborators’ issued patents. Assuming that other requirements for patentability are met, prior to March 2013, in the United States, the first to invent the claimed invention was entitled to the patent, while outside the United States, the first to file a patent application was entitled to the patent. After March 2013, under the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, or the Leahy-Smith Act, enacted in September 2011, the United States transitioned to a first inventor to file system in which, assuming that other requirements for patentability are met, the first inventor to file a patent application will be entitled to the patent on an invention regardless of whether a third party was the first to invent the claimed invention. The Leahy-Smith Act also includes a number of significant changes that affect the way patent applications are prosecuted and may also affect patent litigation. These include allowing third-party submission of prior art to the USPTO during patent prosecution and additional procedures to attack the validity of a patent by USPTO-administered post-grant proceedings, including post-grant review, inter partes review and derivation proceedings. The USPTO recently developed new regulations and procedures to govern administration of the Leahy-Smith Act, and many of the substantive changes to patent law associated with the Leahy-Smith Act, particularly the first inventor-to-file provisions. Accordingly, it is not clear what, if any, impact the Leahy-Smith Act will have on the operation of our business. However, the Leahy-Smith Act and its implementation could increase the uncertainties and costs surrounding the prosecution of our or our licensors’ patent applications and the enforcement or defense of our or our licensors’ issued patents, all of which could harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. 

Obtaining and maintaining patent protection depends on compliance with various procedural, document submission, fee payment and other requirements imposed by governmental patent agencies, and our patent protection could be reduced or eliminated if we fail to comply with these requirements. 

Periodic maintenance fees, renewal fees, annuity fees and various other government fees on any issued patents and applications are required to be paid to the USPTO and foreign patent agencies in several stages over the lifetime of a patent. In certain