The majority of our U.S. operations are located in California where the cost of living and of recruiting employees is high. Our operating results depend, in large part, upon our ability to retain and attract qualified management, engineering, marketing, manufacturing, customer support, sales and administrative personnel. Furthermore, we compete with industries such as the hard disk drive, semiconductor, and solar industries for skilled employees. Failure to retain existing key personnel, or to attract, assimilate or retain additional highly qualified employees to meet our needs in the future, could have a material and adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property
Our growth depends on development of technically advanced new products and processes.
We have invested heavily, and continue to invest, in the development of new products, such as our 200 Lean HDD and our TRIO platform, Our development efforts have included, and may in the future include, entry into joint development arrangements with our customers. These arrangements may not be successful or result in future product sales. Our success in developing and selling new products depends upon a variety of factors, including our ability to: (1) predict future customer requirements; (2) make technological advances; (3) achieve a low total cost of ownership for our products; (4) introduce new products on schedule; (5) manufacture products cost-effectively including transitioning production to volume manufacturing; (6) commercialize and attain customer acceptance of our products; and (7) achieve acceptable and reliable performance of our new products in the field. Our new product decisions and development commitments must anticipate continuously evolving industry requirements significantly in advance of sales. In addition, we are attempting to expand into new or related markets, including the ADVC market. Our expansion into the ADVC market is dependent upon the success of our customers’ development plans. To date we have not recognized material revenue from such products. Failure to correctly assess the size of the market, successfully develop products on a timely basis, successfully develop cost effective products to address the market, or establish effective sales and support of new products would have a material adverse effect on future revenues and profits. In addition, if we invest in products for which the market does not develop as anticipated, we may incur significant charges related to such investments.
Rapid technological change in our served markets requires us to rapidly develop new technically advanced products. Our future success depends in part on our ability to develop and offer new products with improved capabilities and to continue to enhance our existing products. If new products have reliability or quality problems, our performance may be impacted by reduced orders, higher manufacturing costs, delays in acceptance and payment for new products and additional service and warranty expenses.
Our business depends on the integrity of our intellectual property rights.
The success of our business depends upon the integrity of our intellectual property rights, and we cannot ensure that: (1) any of our pending or future patent applications will be allowed or that any of the allowed applications will be issued as patents or will issue with claims of the scope we sought; (2) any of our patents will not be invalidated, deemed unenforceable, circumvented or challenged; (3) the rights granted under our patents will provide competitive advantages to us; (4) other parties will not develop similar products, duplicate our products or design around our patents; or (5) our patent rights, intellectual property laws or our agreements will adequately protect our intellectual property or competitive position.
From time to time, we have received claims that we are infringing third parties’ intellectual property rights or seeking to invalidate our rights. We cannot ensure that third parties will not in the future claim that we have infringed current or future patents, trademarks or other proprietary rights relating to our products. Any claims, with or without merit, could be time-consuming, result in costly litigation, cause product shipment delays or require us to enter into royalty or licensing agreements. Such royalty or licensing agreements, if required, may not be available on terms acceptable to us.
Risks Related to Government Regulation
We are subject to risks of non-compliance with environmental and other governmental regulations.
We are subject to a variety of governmental regulations relating to the use, storage, discharge, handling, emission, generation, manufacture, treatment and disposal of toxic or otherwise hazardous substances, chemicals, materials or waste. If we fail to comply with current or future regulations, such failure could result in suspension of our operations, alteration of our manufacturing process, remediation costs or substantial civil penalties or criminal fines against us or our officers, directors or employees. Additionally, these regulations could require us to acquire expensive remediation or abatement equipment and incur substantial expenses to comply with them.
In addition, climate change legislation is a significant topic of recent discussion and has generated and may continue to generate federal, international or other regulatory responses in the near future. If we or our suppliers, customers or partners fail to timely comply with applicable legislation, certain customers may refuse to purchase our products or we may face increased operating costs as a result of taxes, fines or penalties, or incur legal liability and reputational damage, which could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.
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