Company: OCEA
Filing Date: 2025-04-08
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001641172-25-003155
Chunk: 2615

Company: Ocean Biomedical, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-04-08
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 2615
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 of treatment, as well as successfully defending these patents against third-party challenges. We currently
license or sublicense all of the intellectual property underlying our product candidates from universities and from other institutions
such as for example, Elkurt and Rhode Island Hospital, and as such do not currently and solely maintain patents regarding the intellectual
property we use. Our ability to stop unauthorized third parties from making, using, selling, offering to sell or importing our product
candidates is dependent upon the extent to which we have rights under valid and enforceable patents that cover these activities and whether
a court would issue an injunctive remedy. If we are unable to secure and maintain patent protection for any product or technology we
develop, or if the scope of the patent protection secured is not sufficiently broad, our competitors could develop and commercialize
products and technology similar or identical to ours, and our ability to commercialize any product candidates we may develop may be adversely
affected.

The
patenting process is expensive and time-consuming, and we or our licensors may not be able to file and prosecute all necessary or desirable
patent applications at a reasonable cost or in a timely manner. In addition, we or our licensors may not pursue, obtain, or maintain
patent protection in all relevant markets. It is also possible that we will fail to identify patentable aspects of our research and development
output before it is too late to obtain patent protection. Moreover, in some circumstances, we may not have the right to control the preparation,
filing and prosecution of patent applications, or to maintain the patents, covering technology that we license or sublicense from or
license to third parties and are reliant on our licensors, sublicensors or licensees.

The
strength of patents in the biotechnology and biopharmaceutical field involves complex legal and scientific questions and can be uncertain.
The patent applications that we in-license or may own in the future may fail to result in issued patents with claims that cover our product
candidates or uses thereof in the United States or in other foreign countries. Even if the patents do successfully issue, third parties
may challenge the validity, enforceability or scope thereof, which may result in such patents being narrowed, invalidated or held unenforceable.
Furthermore, even if they are unchallenged, our patents and patent applications may not adequately protect our technology, including
our product candidates, or prevent others from designing around our claims. If the breadth or strength of protection provided by the
patent applications we hold with respect to our product candidates is