Company: PTHS
Filing Date: 2025-03-27
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001753926-25-000503
Chunk: 284

Company: Pelthos Therapeutics Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-03-27
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 284
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, may
not provide sufficient protection for our trade secrets or other confidential information. Further, to the extent that our employees,
consultants or contractors use technology or know-how owned by others in their work for the Company, disputes may arise as to
the rights in related inventions. This can be of particular concern with respect to university collaborators with us, who typically
have pre-existing obligations to their universities to assign intellectual property rights, which university rights generally
are superior to assignment rights that we might receive from such individuals.

Enforcing
a claim that a party illegally disclosed or misappropriated a trade secret is difficult, expensive and time-consuming, and the
outcome is unpredictable. In addition, some courts inside and outside the United States are less willing or unwilling to protect
trade secrets. Moreover, third parties may still obtain this information or may come upon this or similar information independently,
and we would have no right to prevent them from using that technology or information to compete with us. Trade secrets will over
time be disseminated within the industry through independent development, the publication of journal articles, and the movement
of personnel skilled in the art from company to company or academic to industry scientific positions. Though our agreements with
third parties typically restrict the ability of our advisors, employees, collaborators, licensors, suppliers, third-party contractors,
and/or consultants to publish data potentially relating to our trade secrets, our agreements may contain certain limited publication
rights. If any of our trade secrets were to be lawfully obtained or independently developed by a competitor, we would have no
right to prevent such competitor from using that technology or information to compete with us, which could harm our competitive
position. Because from time to time we expect to rely on third parties in the development, manufacture, and distribution of our
products and provision of our services, we must, at times, share trade secrets with them. Despite employing the contractual and
other security precautions described above, the need to share trade secrets increases the risk that such trade secrets become
known by our competitors, are inadvertently incorporated into the technology of others, or are disclosed or used in violation
of these agreements. If any of these events occurs or if we otherwise lose protection for our trade secrets, the value of this
information may be greatly reduced and our competitive position would be harmed. If we do not apply for patent protection prior
to such publication or if we cannot otherwise maintain the confidentiality of our proprietary technology and other confidential
information, then our ability to obtain patent protection or to protect our trade secret