Company: HCWB
Filing Date: 2025-04-28
Form Type: DRS
Source: 0000950123-25-003769
Chunk: 66

Company: HCW Biologics Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-04-28
Form: DRS
Chunk 66
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 technology, the prosecution, enforcement, defense, and maintenance of which may be challenging and costly. Failure to protect or enforce these rights adequately could harm our ability to compete and impair our business.

Our commercial success depends in part on obtaining and maintaining patents and other forms of intellectual property rights for technology
related to our product candidates, including, but not limited to, our immunotherapy platform technology, product candidates, methods used to manufacture those product candidates, formulations thereof, and the methods for treating patients using
those product candidates. Given that the development of our technology and product candidates is at an early stage, our intellectual property portfolio with respect to certain aspects of our technology and product candidates is also at an early
stage. We seek to protect our proprietary position by filing patent applications in the United States and abroad related to our novel platform technology and product candidates that are important to our business. The patent prosecution process is
expensive and time-consuming, and we may not be able to prepare, file, and prosecute all necessary or desirable patent applications at a reasonable cost or in a timely manner. In addition, during the patent prosecution process, we may receive
rejections. Although we would be given an opportunity to respond to those rejections, we may be unable to overcome such rejections.

The
issuance, scope, validity, enforceability, and commercial value of our current or future patent rights are highly uncertain. It is possible that we will fail to identify patentable aspects of inventions made in the course of development and
commercialization activities before it is too late to obtain patent protection on them. Our pending and future patent applications may not result in the issuance of patents that protect our technology or product candidates, in whole or in part, or
that effectively prevent others from commercializing competitive technologies and product candidates. The patent examination process may require us to narrow the scope of the claims of our pending and future patent applications, which may limit the
scope of patent protection that may be obtained. Further, even if we obtain patents with sufficient scope to protect our technology or product candidates in their present forms, future technical changes to our technology or product candidates may
render the patent coverage inadequate.

We cannot assure you that all of the potentially relevant prior art relating to our patents and
patent applications has been found. If such prior art exists, it can invalidate or narrow the scope of a patent or prevent a patent from issuing from a pending patent application. Even if patents do successfully issue and even if such patents cover
our product candidates, third parties have