Adaptec 2002 Annual Report Download - page 12

LICENSES, PATENTS AND TRADEMARKS
We rely in part on patents to protect our intellectual property and have been awarded 137 U.S. and 63
foreign patents for circuit designs and other innovations used in the design and architecture of our
products. In addition, we have 102 patent applications pending in the U.S. Patent and Trademark office, and
8 patent applications pending in other countries. Our patents expire typically 20 years from the patent
application date if accepted, with our existing patents expiring between 2010 and 2021.
We do not consider our business to be materially dependent upon any one patent, although we believe that a
strong portfolio of patents combined with other factors such as our innovative ability, technological
expertise and the experience of our personnel are important to compete effectively in the industry. A
portfolio of patents also provides the flexibility to negotiate or cross license intellectual property with
other semiconductor companies to incorporate other features in our products.
To protect our other intellectual property we rely on mask work protection, trademarks, copyrights, trade
secret laws, employee and third−party nondisclosure agreements, and licensing arrangements.
Our only material license is the MIPS microprocessor architecture license from MIPS Technologies Inc., on
which our microprocessor−based products are based. While the desktop microprocessor market is dominated by
the Intel Corporation's "x86" complex instruction set computing, or CISC, architecture, several
microprocessor architectures have emerged for other microprocessor markets. Because of their higher
performance and smaller space requirements, most of the competing architectures, like the MIPS architecture,
are reduced instruction set computing, or RISC architectures. The MIPS architecture is widely supported
through semiconductor design software, operating systems and companion integrated circuits. Because this
license is the architecture behind our microprocessors, we must be able to retain the MIPS license in order
to produce our follow−on microprocessor products.
PMC and its logo are our registered trademarks and service marks. We own other trademarks and service marks
not appearing in this Annual Report. Any other trademarks used in this Annual Report are owned by other
entities.
EMPLOYEES
As of December 31, 2002, we had 1,099 employees, including 679 in Research and Development, 118 in
Production and Quality Assurance, 203 in Marketing and Sales and 99 in Administration. In January 2003, we
announced a restructuring which we expect to reduce our headcount to 924 employees. Our employees are not
represented by a collective bargaining agreement and we have never experienced any related work stoppage. We
believe our employee relations are good.
ITEM 2. Properties.
PMC leases or owns properties in twenty−seven locations worldwide. Approximately 45% of the space leased by
PMC was unoccupied at December 31, 2002. We are actively trying to sublease or negotiate our exit from these
excess facilities.
We lease a total of 431,000 square feet in four separate buildings in Santa Clara, California, to house the
majority of our US design, engineering, product test, sales and marketing operations.
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