Company: PMVP
Filing Date: 2025-03-03
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000950170-25-030414
Chunk: 119

Company: PMV Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-03-03
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 119
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 patents protect the use of a product for the specified method. This type of patent does not prevent a competitor from making and marketing a product that is identical to our products for an indication that is outside the scope of the patented method. Moreover, even if competitors do not actively promote their product for our targeted indications, physicians may prescribe these products “off-label.” Although off-label prescriptions may infringe or contribute to the infringement of method-of use patents, the practice is common and such infringement is difficult to prevent or prosecute. 

The strength of patents in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical field involves complex legal and scientific questions and can be uncertain. The patent applications that we own may fail to result in issued patents in the United States or in other foreign countries. Even if the patents do successfully issue, third parties may challenge the validity, enforceability, inventorship or scope thereof. Such a challenge 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 intellectual property or prevent others from designing around our claims. If the breadth or strength of protection provided by the patents and patent applications we hold with respect to our product candidates is threatened, it could dissuade companies from collaborating with us to develop, and threaten our ability to commercialize, our product candidates. Further, if we encounter delays in our clinical trials, the period of time during which we could market our product candidates under patent protection would be reduced. Since patent applications in the United States and most other countries are confidential for a period of time after filing, we cannot be certain that we were the first to file any patent application related to our product candidates. This will require us to be cognizant of the time from invention to filing of a patent application.

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In addition to the protection afforded by patents, we seek to rely on trade secret protection and confidentiality agreements to protect proprietary know-how that is not patentable, processes for which patents are difficult to enforce and any other elements of our drug discovery and development processes that involve proprietary know-how, information or technology that is not covered by patents. We may also rely on trade secret protection as temporary protection for concepts that may be included in a future patent filing. However, trade secret protection will not protect us from innovations that a competitor develops independently of our proprietary know how. If a competitor independently develops a technology that we protect as a trade secret and files a patent application on that technology, then we may not be able to patent that