Company: HMDCF
Filing Date: 2025-03-19
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0001410578-25-000377
Chunk: 83

Company: HUTCHMED (China) Ltd
Filing Date: 2025-03-19
Form: 20-F
Item: Item 1
Chunk 83
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, impact the America Invents Act will have on the cost of prosecuting our or our joint ventures’ patent applications and our or their ability to obtain patents based on our or our joint ventures’ discoveries and to enforce or defend any patents that may issue from our or their patent applications, all of which could have a material adverse effect on our business.

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If we are unable to maintain the confidentiality of our, our collaboration partners’ and our joint ventures’ trade secrets, the business and competitive position of ourselves and our joint ventures may be harmed.

In addition to the protection afforded by patents and the PRC’s State Secret certification, we, our collaboration partners and our joint ventures rely upon unpatented trade secret protection, unpatented know-how and continuing technological innovation to develop and maintain our competitive position. We seek to protect our, our collaboration partners’ and our joint ventures’ proprietary technology and processes, in part, by entering into confidentiality agreements with our and their collaborators, scientific advisors, employees and consultants, and invention assignment agreements with our and their consultants and employees. We, our collaboration partners and our joint ventures may not be able to prevent the unauthorized disclosure or use of our or their technical know-how or other trade secrets by the parties to these agreements, however, despite the existence generally of confidentiality agreements and other contractual restrictions. If any of the collaborators, scientific advisors, employees and consultants who are parties to these agreements breaches or violates the terms of any of these agreements, we and our joint ventures may not have adequate remedies for any such breach or violation, and we, our collaboration partners could lose our trade secrets as a result. Enforcing a claim that a third-party illegally obtained and is using our or our joint ventures’ trade secrets, like patent litigation, is expensive and time consuming, and the outcome is unpredictable. In addition, courts in China and other jurisdictions outside the United States are sometimes less prepared or willing to protect trade secrets.

The trade secrets of our company, our collaboration partners and our joint ventures could otherwise become known or be independently discovered by our or their competitors. For example, competitors could purchase our drugs and attempt to replicate some or all of the competitive advantages we derive from our development efforts, willfully infringe our intellectual property rights, design around our protected technology or develop their own competitive technologies that fall outside of our intellectual property rights. If any of our, our collaboration partners’ or our joint ventures’ trade secrets were to be lawfully obtained or independently developed by a competitor, we and our joint ventures would have no right