Company: AWRE
Filing Date: 2025-03-13
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000950170-25-038714
Chunk: 15

Company: AWARE INC /MA/
Filing Date: 2025-03-13
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 15
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 18% of total revenue in 2023.  As of December 31, 2024, two customers combined represented 34% of our net accounts receivable and unbilled receivables, and as of December 31, 2023, one customer represented 16%, of our net accounts receivable and unbilled receivables.  

6

Competitive Business Conditions

A significant number of established companies have developed or are developing and marketing software and hardware for biometrics products and applications that currently compete with or will compete directly with our offerings.  We believe that additional competitors will enter the biometrics market and become significant long-term competitors, and that, as a result, competition will increase.  Companies competing with us may introduce solutions that are competitively priced, have increased performance or functionality or incorporate technological advances we have not yet developed or implemented. Our current principal competitors include: 

•Diversified technology providers that offer integrated biometrics solutions to governments, law enforcement agencies and other commercial organizations.  This group of competitors includes companies such as Idemia, Thales, and NEC.

•Component providers that offer biometrics software and hardware components for fingerprint, facial, iris and voice biometric identification.  This group of competitors includes companies such as FaceTec, iProov, and Innovatrics.

We expect competition to intensify in the near term in the biometrics market. Many current and potential competitors have substantially greater financial, marketing, and research resources than we have.  Moreover, low-cost foreign competitors have demonstrated a willingness to sell their products at significantly reduced prices. To compete effectively in this environment, we must continually develop and market new and enhanced solutions and technologies at competitive prices, and must have the resources available to invest in significant research and development activities. Our failure to compete successfully could cause our revenues and market share to decline. 

Intellectual Property

We rely on a combination of nondisclosure agreements and other contractual provisions, as well as patent, trademark, trade secret and copyright law to protect our proprietary rights.  We have an active program to protect our proprietary technology through the filing of patents.  As of December 31, 2024, we had 68 U.S. patents, 4 foreign patents and 7 pending patent applications. Our patents and patent applications pertain primarily to biometrics and imaging compression.  We have let certain patents expire that are not aligned with our business and are not relevant to our current or future activities.  Our patents have expiration dates ranging from 202