Vistaprint 2010 Annual Report Download - page 17

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Form 10-K
limited basis, test various price points on products and services or test different marketing messages
related to product or service offerings.
We place advertisements on the websites of companies such as eBay and Amazon, contract
for targeted e-mail marketing services from vendors such as MyPoints, and contract for placement on
leading search engines such as Google and Yahoo!. We maintain affiliate programs with companies
under which we permit program members to include hyperlinks to our websites on their sites and in
promotional materials and we pay program members for sales generated through those links.
We have also entered into a variety of strategic partnerships that facilitate access to customers
that would be difficult to reach through traditional direct marketing channels. We focus on cultivating
opportunities with strategic importance in the micro business marketplace and seek to partner with
companies that have large numbers of well established micro business customer relationships.
For example, we have developed a scalable capability to address the market of customers who
choose to order customized products and services through retail and online properties of office
superstores, retailers and copy storefronts, through strategic partnerships with third parties and we
have also entered into strategic partnerships with online and software vendors to small businesses.
We believe we are positioned to develop additional relationships in similar markets.
In addition, we create co-branded versions of our websites and web landing pages for
companies in a variety of industries, such as franchised organizations seeking brand consistency. In
general, these arrangements involve payment of a commission or revenue share to these companies
for sales of our products and services generated through these websites and web pages.
Intellectual Property
We seek to protect our proprietary rights through a combination of patent, copyright, trade
secret, and trademark law and contractual restrictions, such as confidentiality agreements and
proprietary rights agreements. We enter into confidentiality and proprietary rights agreements with our
employees, consultants and business partners, and control access to and distribution of our
proprietary information.
We currently hold 47 issued patents in the United States and other countries. Subject to our
continued payment of required patent maintenance fees, our currently issued patents will expire
between December 2017 and July 2028. In addition, we currently have more than 50 patent
applications pending in the United States and other countries and we intend to pursue corresponding
patent coverage in additional countries to the extent we believe such coverage is justified, appropriate,
and cost efficient. Our issued patents relate generally to our automated process for receiving,
processing, aggregating and producing multiple individual print jobs and to automated processes for
facilitating document creation at a client system.
From time to time, we are involved in lawsuits or disputes in which third parties claim that we
have violated their intellectual property rights. In addition, a third party may claim that we have
improperly obtained or used its confidential or proprietary information. We have in the past received
letters from third parties that state that these third parties have patent rights that cover aspects of the
technology that we use in our business and that the third parties believe we are obligated to license in
order to continue to use such technology. Any claims that our products or processes infringe the
intellectual property rights of others, regardless of the merit or resolution of such claims, could cause
us to incur significant costs in responding to, defending, and resolving such claims, and may divert the
efforts and attention of our management and technical personnel away from our business. You can
find more information about the risks relating to our intellectual property rights in Item 1A of Part I,
“Risk Factors” in this report.
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