Company: PTHS
Filing Date: 2025-05-27
Form Type: DEFM14C
Source: 0001140361-25-020509
Chunk: 145

Company: Pelthos Therapeutics Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-05-27
Form: DEFM14C
Chunk 145
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 relevant prior art relating to its patents and patent applications or licensed patents and patent applications has been found, which could be used by a third party to challenge their validity or prevent a patent from issuing from a pending patent application.

To determine the priority of these inventions, LNHC may have to participate in interference proceedings (with respect to patent applications filed prior to March 2013), derivation proceedings or other post-grant proceedings declared by the USPTO that could result in substantial cost to it. The outcome of such proceedings is uncertain. No assurance can be given that other patent applications will not have priority over its patent applications (whether owned by LNHC or in-licensed from Ligand or another third party). In addition, changes to the patent laws of the United States allow for various post-grant opposition proceedings that have not been extensively tested, and their outcome is therefore uncertain. Furthermore, if third parties bring these proceedings against its patents (whether owned by LNHC or in-licensed from Ligand or another third party), LNHC could experience significant costs and management distraction.

Changes in patent law in the United States and other jurisdictions could diminish the value of patents in general, thereby impairing Ligand’s ability to protect its products, platform and technology on which LNHC relies.

Changes in either the patent laws or interpretation of the patent laws in the United States could increase the uncertainties and costs surrounding the prosecution of patent applications and the enforcement or defense of issued patents, and may diminish LNHC’s ability to protect its inventions, obtain, maintain, enforce and protect its intellectual property rights and, more generally, could affect the value of its intellectual property or narrow the scope of its future owned and licensed patents. Depending on future actions by the United States Congress, the United States courts, the USPTO and the relevant law-making bodies in other countries, the laws and regulations governing patents could change in unpredictable ways that would weaken LNHC’s or its license partners’ ability to obtain new patents and patents that LNHC or its license partners might obtain in the future. For example, on June 1, 2023, the European Union Patent Package (“EU Patent Package”) regulations were implemented with the goal of providing a single pan-European Unitary Patent and a new European Unified Patent Court (“UPC”) for litigation involving European patents. As a result, all European patents, including those issued prior to ratification of the EU Patent Package, now by default automatically fall under the jurisdiction of the UPC. It is uncertain how the UPC will impact granted European patents in the bi