Company: EVLVW
Filing Date: 2025-04-28
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001628280-25-020355
Chunk: 9

Company: Evolv Technologies Holdings, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-04-28
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 9
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 a general matter, marketing content goes through a thorough review process before being released to the market. 

Manufacturing and Suppliers

Our physical products are manufactured by our primary third-party contract manufacturer, Columbia Tech, based in the United States with international quality certifications, such as ISO 9001:2015. We also utilize other third-party manufacturers to produce certain components. We design our products and processes and internally manufacture the initial engineering prototypes. Our internal manufacturing and supply chain teams work collaboratively with both our internal engineering department and Columbia Tech to scale up the prototypes for commercialization through a phase gate product launch process. There have been significant efforts made over the last several years with Columbia Tech to scale up our production. Columbia Tech also provides a variety of services including sourcing off-the-shelf components, manufacturing custom components/assemblies, final product assembly and integration, end of line testing and quality assurance per our specifications, material and finished goods inventory, and direct global shipping to our customers.

We initially manage the supply chain for key components and materials, and then, in some cases, set up supply agreements in conjunction with Columbia Tech to enable stable supply and redundancy where applicable. Component purchasing is managed by Columbia Tech's sourcing team under a vendor list approved by us to leverage the buying power of their global scale. All of our products are built to our specifications, work instructions, and testing protocols. Inventory levels are managed with our manufacturing partners to ensure an adequate supply is on hand to meet business forecasts.

Intellectual Property

Our ability to drive innovation in the security screening market depends in part upon our ability to protect our core technology and intellectual property. We attempt to protect our intellectual property rights, both in the United States and abroad, through a combination of patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret laws, as well as nondisclosure and invention assignment agreements with our consultants and employees and through non-disclosure agreements with our vendors and business partners. However, our contractual provisions may not always be effective at preventing unauthorized parties from obtaining our intellectual property and proprietary technology.

10

Unpatented research, development, know-how, and engineering skills make an important contribution to our business, but we pursue patent protection when we believe it is possible and consistent with our overall strategy for safeguarding intellectual property. We intend to pursue additional intellectual property protection to the extent we believe it would advance our business objectives and maintain our competitive position. Notwithstanding these efforts, there can be no assurance that we will adequately protect our intellectual property or that it will provide any competitive advantage. Intellectual property laws, procedures