Company: OCEA
Filing Date: 2025-04-08
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001641172-25-003155
Chunk: 3511

Company: Ocean Biomedical, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-04-08
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 3511
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March 16, 2013, an interference proceeding can be provoked by a third-party or instituted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office,
or USPTO, to determine who was the first to invent any of the subject matter covered by the patent claims of our applications. Similarly,
for United States applications in which at least one claim is not entitled to a priority date before March 16, 2013, derivation proceedings
can be instituted to determine whether the subject matter of a patent claim was derived from a prior inventor’s disclosure.

We
may be required to disclaim part or all of the term of certain patents or all of the term of certain patent applications. There may be
prior art of which we are not aware that may affect the validity or enforceability of a patent or patent application claim. There also
may be prior art of which we are aware, but which we do not believe affects the validity or enforceability of a claim, which may, nonetheless,
ultimately be found to affect the validity or enforceability of a claim. No assurance can be given that if challenged, our patents would
be declared by a court to be valid or enforceable or that even if found valid and enforceable, would adequately protect our product candidates,
or would be found by a court to be infringed by a competitor’s technology or product. We may analyze patents or patent applications
of our competitors that we believe are relevant to our activities, and consider that we are free to operate in relation to our product
candidates, but our competitors may achieve issued claims, including in patents we consider to be unrelated, which block our efforts
or may potentially result in our product candidates or our activities infringing such claims. The possibility exists that others will
develop products which have the same effect as our products on an independent basis which do not infringe our patents or other intellectual
property rights, or will design around the claims of patents that may issue that cover our products.

95

Recent
or future patent reform legislation could increase the uncertainties and costs surrounding the prosecution of our patent applications
and the enforcement or defense of our issued patents. Under the enacted Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, or America Invents Act, enacted
in 2013, the United States moved from a “first to invent” to a “first-to-file” system. Under a “first-to-file”
system, assuming the other requirements for patentability are met, the first inventor to file a patent application generally will be
entitled to a