Citrix 2014 Annual Report Download - page 30

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partially contributed to non-cash impairment charges of $59.3 million. Also, we may make divestitures of businesses in the
future. If we determine that any of the goodwill or other intangible assets associated with our acquisitions is impaired, then we
would be required to reduce the value of those assets or to write them off completely by taking a charge to current earnings. If
we are required to write down or write off all or a portion of those assets, or if financial analysts or investors believe we may
need to take such action in the future, our stock price and operating results could be materially and adversely affected.
Our inability to maintain or develop our strategic and technology relationships could adversely affect our business.
We have several strategic and technology relationships with large and complex organizations, such as Microsoft and
Cisco, and other companies with which we work to offer complementary products and services. We depend on the companies
with which we have strategic relationships to successfully test our products, to incorporate our technology into their products
and to market and sell those products. There can be no assurance we will realize the expected benefits from these strategic
relationships or that they will continue in the future. If successful, these relationships may be mutually beneficial and result in
industry growth. However, such relationships carry an element of risk because, in most cases, we must compete in some
business areas with a company with which we have a strategic relationship and, at the same time, cooperate with that company
in other business areas. Also, if these companies fail to perform or if these relationships fail to materialize as expected, we
could suffer delays in product development, reduced sales or other operational difficulties and our business, results of
operations and financial condition could be materially adversely affected.
RISKS RELATED TO INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND BRAND RECOGNITION
Our efforts to protect our intellectual property may not be successful, which could materially and adversely affect our
business.
We rely primarily on a combination of copyright, trademark, patent and trade secret laws, confidentiality procedures and
contractual provisions to protect our source code, innovations and other intellectual property, all of which offer only limited
protection. The loss of any material trade secret, trademark, tradename, patent or copyright could have a material adverse effect
on our business. Despite our precautions, it could be possible for unauthorized third parties to infringe our intellectual property
rights or misappropriate, copy, disclose or reverse engineer our proprietary information, including certain portions of our
products or to otherwise obtain and use our proprietary source code. In addition, our ability to monitor and control such
misappropriation or infringement is uncertain, particularly in countries outside of the United States. If we cannot protect our
intellectual property from infringement and our proprietary source code against unauthorized copying, disclosure or use, loss of
our market share could result, including as a result of unauthorized third parties’ development of products and technologies
similar to or better than ours.
The scope of our patent protection may be affected by changes in legal precedent and patent office interpretation of these
precedents. Further, any patents owned by us could be invalidated, circumvented or challenged. Any of our pending or future
patent applications, whether or not being currently challenged, may not be issued with the scope of protection we seek, if at all;
and if issued, may not provide any meaningful protection or competitive advantage.
Our ability to protect our proprietary rights could be affected by differences in international law and the enforceability of
licenses. The laws of some foreign countries do not protect our intellectual property to the same extent as do the laws of the
United States and Canada. For example, we derive a significant portion of our sales from licensing our products under “click-
to-accept” license agreements that are not signed by licensees and through electronic enterprise customer licensing
arrangements that are delivered electronically, all of which could be unenforceable under the laws of many foreign jurisdictions
in which we license our products. Moreover, with respect to the various confidentiality, license or other agreements we utilize
with third parties related to their use of our products and technologies, there is no guarantee that such parties will abide by the
terms of such agreements.
Our products and services, including products obtained through acquisitions, could infringe third-party intellectual
property rights, which could result in material litigation costs.
We are increasingly subject to patent infringement claims and may in the future be subject to an increased number of
claims, including claims alleging the unauthorized use of a third-party's code in our products. This may occur for a variety of
reasons, including:
• the expansion of our product lines, such as our Workspace Services and Delivery Networking products, and related
technical services and expansion of our Mobility Apps products, through product development and acquisitions;
• an increase in patent infringement litigation commenced by non-practicing entities;