Company: INKT
Filing Date: 2025-03-18
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000950170-25-041379
Chunk: 97

Company: MiNK Therapeutics, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-03-18
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 97
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 as well as a number of U.S. and foreign patent applications directed to T cell receptors. Agenus has also assigned to us know-how that supports our cell-based immunotherapies and uses with respect to treatment of particular diseases and conditions and that may provide us with the opportunity to obtain additional patent protection. U.S. provisional patent applications do not themselves mature into granted patent rights, but a non-provisional U.S. and other applications that can result in granted patent rights may claim the benefit of a provisional application if filed within 12 months of the filing date of the provisional application. In any particular case, the failure to file a non-provisional patent application claiming the benefit of the provisional application within the 12-month period could cause us 

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to lose the ability to obtain patent protection for the inventions disclosed in the provisional application. We cannot be certain that any patent applications that we file will issue as patents, and if they do, that such patents will protect our cell-based immunotherapies or our product candidates, or that such patents will not be challenged, narrowed, circumvented, invalidated or held unenforceable. Any failure to obtain or maintain patent protection with respect to our cell-based immunotherapies and product candidates could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and growth prospects. 

Claims to therapeutic methods in a patent do not prevent a competitor or other third party from developing or marketing an identical product for an indication that is outside the scope of such claims. Moreover, even if competitors or other third parties do not actively promote their product to treat the indications recited in such patent claims, health care providers may recommend that patients use the competitor products off-label, or patients may do so themselves. 

The strength of patents in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical field involves complex legal and scientific questions and can be uncertain. The patent applications that we own or in-license in the future may fail to result in issued patents with claims that cover our product candidates or uses thereof in the United States or other countries. For example, during the pendency of any of our patent applications, we may be subject to a third party pre-issuance submission of prior art to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (the “USPTO”), or we may become involved in interference or derivation proceedings, or various pre-grant third-party challenges in foreign jurisdictions. Even if patents are issued, third parties may challenge the inventorship, validity, enforceability or scope thereof, including through opposition