Company: CNTB
Filing Date: 2025-03-31
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001835268-25-000014
Chunk: 152

Company: Connect Biopharma Holdings Ltd
Filing Date: 2025-03-31
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 152
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 and any future Product Candidates;

•there may be significant pressure on the U.S. government and international governmental bodies to limit the scope of patent protection both inside and outside the U.S. for disease treatments that prove successful, as a matter of public policy regarding worldwide health concerns; and

•countries other than the U.S. may have patent laws less favorable to patentees than those of the U.S., allowing foreign competitors a better opportunity to create, develop and market competing products.

The patent prosecution process is also expensive and time consuming, and we and our future licensors may not be able to file and prosecute all necessary or desirable patent applications at a reasonable cost or in a timely manner or in all jurisdictions where protection may be commercially advantageous. It is also possible that we and our future licensors will fail to identify patentable aspects of our research and development output before it is too late to obtain patent protection. We and our future licensors may also inadvertently make statements to regulatory agencies during the regulatory approval process that may be inconsistent with positions that have been taken during prosecution of the patent applications, which may result in such patents being narrowed, invalidated or held unenforceable. Moreover, in some circumstances, we may not have the right to control the preparation, filing and prosecution of patent applications, or to maintain the patents, directed to technology that we license to or from third parties. We may also require the cooperation of our future licensors, licensees or other collaborators in order to enforce or defend the licensed patent rights, and such cooperation may not be provided. Therefore, these patents and applications may not be prosecuted, maintained, enforced and defended in a manner consistent with the best interests of our business. We cannot be certain that patent prosecution and maintenance activities by our future licensors have been or will be conducted in compliance with applicable laws and regulations, which may affect the validity and enforceability of such patents or any patents that may issue from such applications. If they fail to do so, this could cause us to lose rights in any applicable intellectual property that we in-license, and as a result our ability to develop and commercialize products or Product Candidates may be adversely affected and we may be unable to prevent competitors from making, using and selling competing products.

In addition, although we enter into non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements with parties who have access to patentable aspects of our research and development output, such as our employees, outside scientific collaborators, CROs, third-party manufacturers, consultants, advisors and other third parties, any of these parties may breach such agreements and disclose such output