Company: IOBT
Filing Date: 2025-03-31
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000950170-25-047744
Chunk: 208

Company: IO Biotech, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-03-31
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 208
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. Method of use patents protect the use of a product for the specified method. This type of patent does not prevent a competitor from making and marketing a product that is identical to our product for an indication that is outside the scope of the patented method. Moreover, even if competitors do not actively promote their product for our targeted indications, physicians may prescribe these products “off-label.” Off-label prescriptions may infringe or contribute to the infringement of method of use patents, but the practice is common and such infringement is difficult to prevent or prosecute. 

The patent position of biopharmaceutical companies generally is highly uncertain, involves complex legal, scientific, and factual questions and has in recent years been the subject of much litigation, resulting in court decisions, including United States Supreme Court decisions, which have increased uncertainties as to the ability to enforce patent rights in the future. The standards that the USPTO and its foreign counterparts use to grant patents are not always applied predictably or uniformly. In addition, the laws of foreign countries may not protect our rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States, or vice versa. 

101

The patent application process is subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, and we or any of our potential future collaborators may not be successful in protecting our product candidates by obtaining and defending patents. For example, we may not be aware of all third-party intellectual property rights potentially relating to our product candidates or their intended uses, and as a result the impact of such third-party intellectual property rights upon the patentability of our own patents and patent applications, as well as the impact of such third-party intellectual property upon our freedom to operate, is highly uncertain. Patent applications in the United States and other jurisdictions are typically not published until 18 months after filing or, in some cases, not at all. Therefore, we cannot know with certainty whether we were the first to make the inventions claimed in our patents or pending patent applications, or that we were the first to file for patent protection of such inventions. As a result, the issuance, inventorship, scope, validity, enforceability and commercial value of our patent rights are highly uncertain. Our pending patent applications may be challenged in patent offices in the United States and abroad. The issuance of a patent is not conclusive as to its inventorship, ownership, scope, validity or enforceability. Even issued patents may later be found invalid or unenforceable or may be modified or revoked in proceedings instituted by third parties before various patent offices or in courts. For example, our pending patent applications may