Company: ADPT
Filing Date: 2025-03-03
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000950170-25-030913
Chunk: 112

Company: Adaptive Biotechnologies Corp
Filing Date: 2025-03-03
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 112
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 infringement of our patents in such countries. Proceedings to enforce our patent rights in foreign jurisdictions could result in substantial cost and divert our efforts and attention from other aspects of our business, could put our patents at risk of being invalidated or interpreted narrowly and our patent applications at risk of not issuing, and could provoke third parties to assert claims against us. We may not prevail in any lawsuits that we initiate and the damages or other remedies awarded, if any, may not be commercially meaningful. Accordingly, our efforts to enforce our intellectual property rights around the world may be inadequate to obtain a significant commercial advantage from the intellectual property that we develop or license. 

Changes in patent law in the U.S. and other jurisdictions could diminish the value of patents in general, thereby impairing our ability to protect our products and services. 

Changes in either the patent laws or in interpretations of patent laws in the U.S. or other countries or regions may diminish the value of our intellectual property. We cannot predict the breadth of claims that may be allowed or enforced in our patents or in third-party patents. In addition, a third party that files a patent application before us could be awarded a patent covering an invention of ours even if we had made the invention before it was made by such third party. This will require us to be cognizant of the time from invention to filing of a patent application. Since patent applications in the U.S. and most other countries are confidential for a period of time after filing or until issuance, we cannot be certain that we or our licensors were the first to either file any patent application related to our products or services or invent any of the inventions claimed in our or our licensor’s patents or patent applications. 

Third parties may also submit prior art to the USPTO during patent prosecution to attack the validity of a patent and it is also possible in the U.S. and other countries for third parties to challenge granted patents through Patent Office proceedings such as, in the U.S., post-grant review, inter partes review and derivation proceedings. In the U.S., a lower evidentiary standard is imposed in USPTO proceedings compared to the evidentiary standard in U.S. federal courts necessary to invalidate a patent claim. As such, a third party could potentially provide evidence in a USPTO proceeding sufficient for the USPTO to hold a claim invalid even though the same evidence would be insufficient to invalidate the claim if first presented in a district court action. Accordingly, a third party may attempt to use the USPTO procedures to invalidate