Salesforce.com 2008 Annual Report Download - page 17

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Table of Contents
Many of our competitors and potential competitors have greater name recognition, longer operating histories, larger marketing budgets and significantly
greater resources. They may be able to devote greater resources to the development, promotion and sale of their products than we can to ours, which could
allow them to respond more quickly than we can to new technologies and changes in customer needs. Additionally, our competitors may offer or develop
products or services that are superior to ours or that achieve greater market acceptance.
Our professional services organization may compete with some systems integrators, including Accenture Ltd., Deloitte Consulting and IBM
Corporation; it may also compete with some ISV service providers that have service practices. We have close relationships with many of these consulting
companies and frequently work cooperatively on projects with them.
Intellectual Property
We rely on a combination of trademark, copyright, trade secret and patent laws in the United States and other jurisdictions as well as confidentiality
procedures and contractual provisions to protect our proprietary technology and our brand. We also enter into confidentiality and proprietary rights
agreements with our employees, consultants and other third parties and control access to software, documentation and other proprietary information.
As of January 31, 2009, we have four issued U.S. patents and 117 pending U.S. patent applications. The majority of our patent applications concern
database, application platform and application exchange infrastructures.
The following are some of our registered trademarks in the U.S. and elsewhere:
salesforce
salesforce.com
"No Software" logo
The End of Software
Success. Not Software
Success. On Demand
"Block S" logo
sforce
AppExchange
Unregistered trademarks we use include:
CRMSuccess
The Business Web
We have received in the past, and may receive in the future, communications from third parties claiming that we have infringed on the intellectual
property rights of others. The cost to defend or settle these claims can be significant in any single quarter. Any intellectual property claims, regardless of
merit, may also require us to seek licenses to that technology. In addition, we license third-party technologies that are incorporated into some elements of our
services. Licenses from third-party technologies may not continue to be available to us at a reasonable cost or on reasonable commercial terms, or at all.
Additionally, the steps we have taken to protect our intellectual property rights may not be adequate. Third parties may infringe or misappropriate our
proprietary rights. Competitors may also independently develop technologies that are substantially equivalent or superior to the technologies we employ in our
services. If we fail to protect our proprietary rights adequately, our competitors could offer similar services, potentially significantly harming our competitive
position and decreasing our revenues.
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