Company: WHWK
Filing Date: 2025-03-28
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001628280-25-015269
Chunk: 101

Company: Whitehawk Therapeutics, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-03-28
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 101
---
. If any of our patents, if and when issued, covering our product candidates are invalidated or found unenforceable, our financial position and results of operations would be materially and adversely impacted. We may not prevail in any lawsuits that we or any third-party initiate and the damages or other remedies awarded if we were to prevail may not be commercially meaningful.

Intellectual property rights do not necessarily address all potential threats to our competitive advantage.

The degree of future protection afforded by our intellectual property rights is uncertain because intellectual property rights have limitations and may not adequately protect our business or permit us to maintain our competitive advantage. For example:

•others may be able to develop products that are similar to any product candidates but that are not covered by the claims of the patents that we own or license;

•we or our licensors or collaborators might not have been the first to make the inventions covered by the issued patents or patent application that we own or license;

•we or our licensors or collaborators might not have been the first to file patent applications covering certain of our inventions;

•others may independently develop similar or alternative technologies or duplicate any of our technologies without infringing our intellectual property rights;

•it is possible that the pending patent applications we own or license will not lead to issued patents;

•issued patents that we own or license may be held invalid or unenforceable, as a result of legal challenges by our competitors;

81

•our competitors might conduct research and development activities in countries where we do not have patent rights and then use the information learned from such activities to develop competitive products for sale in our major commercial markets;

•we may not develop additional proprietary technologies that are patentable;

•the patents of others may have an adverse effect on our business; and

•we may choose not to file a patent in order to maintain certain trade secrets or know-how, and a third party may subsequently file a patent covering such intellectual property.

Should any of these events occur, it could significantly harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

Our success depends significantly on our ability to operate without infringing the patents and other proprietary rights of third parties. Claims by third parties that we infringe their proprietary rights may result in liability for damages or prevent or delay our developmental and commercialization efforts.

Our success depends in part on avoiding infringement or misappropriation of the patents, intellectual property and proprietary rights of third parties. However, our research, development and commercialization activities may be subject to claims that we infringe or otherwise violate patents or other intellectual property rights