The semiconductor industry is characterized by the vigorous pursuit and protection of intellectual property rights. We have not undertaken a comprehensive review of the rights of third parties in our field. From time to time, we may be named in lawsuits or receive notices or inquiries from third parties regarding our products or the manner in which we conduct our business suggesting that we may be infringing, misappropriating or otherwise misusing patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret and other intellectual property rights. Any claims that our technology infringes, misappropriates or otherwise misuses the rights of third parties, regardless of their merit or resolution, could be expensive to litigate or settle and could divert the efforts and attention of our management and technical personnel, cause significant delays and materially disrupt the conduct of our business. We may not prevail in such proceedings given the complex technical issues and inherent uncertainties in intellectual property litigation. If such proceedings result in an adverse outcome, we could be required to:
- pay substantial damages, including treble damages if we were held to have willfully infringed;- cease the manufacture, offering for sale or sale of the infringing technology or processes;- expend significant resources to develop non-infringing technology or processes;- obtain a license from a third party, which may not be available on commercially reasonable terms, or may not be available at all; or - lose the opportunity to license our technology to others or to collect royalty payments based upon successful protection and assertion of our intellectual property against others.
On October 4, 2021, the Company was named as a defendant in a complaint filed by Qorvo, Inc. in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware alleging, among other things, patent infringement, false advertising, false patent marking, and unfair competition. The plaintiff seeks an injunction enjoining us from the alleged infringement and damages, including punitive and statutory enhanced damages, in an unspecified amount. We believe this lawsuit is without merit and intend to defend against it vigorously. However, we can provide no assurance as to the outcome of such dispute, and such action may result in judgments against us for an injunction, significant damages or other relief, such as future royalty payments to Qorvo, Inc. or restrictions on certain of our activities. Resolution of such matter may be prolonged and costly, and the ultimate result or judgment is uncertain due to the inherent uncertainty in litigation and other proceedings. Even if ultimately settled or resolved in our favor, this and other possible future actions may result in significant expenses, diversion of management and technical personnel attention and disruptions and delays in our business and product development, and other collateral consequences, all of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Any out-of-court settlement of this or other actions may also have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations, including, but not limited to, substantial expenses, the payment of royalties, licensing or other fees payable to third parties, or restrictions on our ability to develop, manufacture and sell our products.
Defense of any intellectual property infringement claims against us, regardless of their merit, would involve substantial litigation expense and would be a significant diversion of resources from our business. In the event of the foregoing or another successful claim of infringement against us, we may have to pay substantial damages, obtain one or more licenses from third parties, limit our business to avoid the infringing activities, pay royalties and/or redesign our infringing technology or alter related formulations, processes, methods or other technologies, any or all of which may be impossible or require substantial time and monetary expenditure. The occurrence of any of the above events could prevent us from continuing to develop and commercialize our filters and our business could materially suffer.
In addition, our agreements with prospective customers and manufacturing partners may require us to indemnify such customers and manufacturing partners for third party intellectual property infringement claims. Pursuant to such agreements, we may be required to defend such customers and manufacturing partners against certain claims that could cause us to incur additional costs. While we endeavor to include as part of such indemnification obligations a provision permitting us to assume the defense of any indemnification claim, not all of our current agreements contain such a provision and we cannot provide any assurance that our future agreements will contain such a provision, which could result in increased exposure to us in the case of an indemnification claim.