Company: HCWB
Filing Date: 2025-05-09
Form Type: S-1
Source: 0001193125-25-116745
Chunk: 67

Company: HCW Biologics Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-05-09
Form: S-1
Chunk 67
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 our patents invalid or unenforceable and adversely affect our competitive position. Intellectual property litigation or other legal proceedings could cause us to spend substantial resources and distract our personnel from their normal responsibilities.

Competitors may infringe our patents or other
intellectual property that relate to our immunotherapy platform technology and product candidates, their respective methods of use, manufacture, and formulations thereof. Third parties may in the future claim that our operations infringe their
intellectual property rights. To defend against such claims, protect our competitive position and counter infringement or unauthorized use, we may from time to time need to resort to litigation to enforce or defend any patents or other intellectual
property rights owned or licensed by us by filing infringement claims. We may be subject to further litigation in the future, involving claims that we have misappropriated or misused other parties’ trade secrets or information. To the extent we
gain greater market visibility, we face a higher risk of being the subject of intellectual property infringement claims, which is not uncommon with respect to the biopharmaceutical industry.

As enforcement of intellectual property rights is difficult, unpredictable, time-consuming, and expensive, we may fail in enforcing our
rights, in which case our competitors may be permitted to use our technology without being required to pay us any license fees. In addition, litigation involving our patents carries the risk that one or more of our patents will be held invalid (in
whole, in part, or on a claim-by-claim basis) or held unenforceable. Such an adverse court ruling could allow third parties to commercialize our product candidates or methods, or our immunotherapy platform technology, and then compete directly with
us, without payment to us.

Even if resolved in our favor, such litigation and other legal proceedings may cause us to incur significant
expenses and would be likely to divert significant resources from our core business, including distracting our technical and management personnel from their normal responsibilities, and may impact our reputation. In addition, there could be public
announcements of the results of hearings, motions or other interim proceedings or developments, and if securities analysts or investors perceive these results to be negative, it could have a substantial adverse effect on the price of our Common
Stock. Such litigation or proceedings could substantially

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increase our operating losses and reduce our resources available for development activities. We may not have sufficient financial or other resources to adequately conduct such litigation or
proceedings. Some of our competitors may be able to sustain the costs of such litigation or proceedings more effectively than we can