Company: OCEA
Filing Date: 2025-04-08
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001641172-25-003155
Chunk: 2227

Company: Ocean Biomedical, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-04-08
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 2227
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 Assuming that other requirements for patentability
are met, prior to March 16, 2013, in the United States, the first to invent the claimed invention was entitled to the patent, while outside
the United States, the first to file a patent application was entitled to the patent. On March 16, 2013, under the Leahy-Smith America
Invents Act, or the America Invents Act, enacted in September 2011, the United States transitioned to a first inventor to file system
in which, assuming that other requirements for patentability are met, the first inventor to file a patent application will be entitled
to the patent on an invention regardless of whether a third party was the first to invent the claimed invention. A third party that files
a patent application in the USPTO on or after March 16, 2013, but before us could therefore be awarded a patent covering an invention
of ours even if we had made the invention before it was made by such third party. This will require us to be cognizant of the time from
invention to filing of a patent application. Since patent applications in the United States and most other countries are confidential
for a period of time after filing or until issuance, we cannot be certain that we or our licensors were the first to either (i) file
any patent application related to our product candidates or (ii) invent any of the inventions claimed in our or our licensor’s
patents or patent applications.

The
America Invents Act also includes a number of significant changes that affect the way patent applications will be prosecuted and also
may affect patent litigation. These include allowing third party submission of prior art to the USPTO during patent prosecution and additional
procedures to attack the validity of a patent by USPTO administered post-grant proceedings, including post-grant review, inter partes
review, and derivation proceedings. Because of a lower evidentiary standard in USPTO proceedings compared to the evidentiary standard
in United States federal courts necessary to invalidate a patent claim, a third party could potentially provide evidence in a USPTO proceeding
sufficient for the USPTO to hold a claim invalid even though the same evidence would be insufficient to invalidate the claim if first
presented in a district court action. Accordingly, a third party may attempt to use the USPTO procedures to invalidate our patent claims
that would not have been invalidated if first challenged by the third party as a defendant in a district