eFax 2014 Annual Report Download - page 8

We believe that the primary competitive factors determining our success in the market for our digital media include Ziff Davis's reputation as a trusted source of objective
information and our ability to attract Internet users and advertisers to our web properties.
For more information regarding the competition that we face, please refer to the section entitled Risk Factors contained in Item 1A of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
Patents and Proprietary Rights
We regard the protection of our intellectual property rights as important to our success. We aggressively protect these rights by relying on a combination of patents,
trademarks, copyrights, trade dress and trade secret laws and by using the domain name dispute resolution system. We also enter into confidentiality and invention assignment
agreements with employees and contractors, and nondisclosure agreements with parties with whom we conduct business in order to limit access to and disclosure of our proprietary
information.
Through a combination of internal technology development and acquisitions, we have built a portfolio of numerous U.S. and foreign patents and multiple pending U.S.
and foreign patent applications. We generate licensing revenues from some of these patents. We are currently engaged in litigation to enforce several of our patents. For a more
detailed description of the lawsuits in which we are involved, see Item 3. Legal Proceedings. We intend to continue to invest in patents, to aggressively protect our patent assets
from unauthorized use and to continue to generate patent licensing revenues from authorized users.
We have multiple pending U.S. and foreign patent applications, all covering components of our technology and in some cases technologies beyond those that we currently
offer. Four of our core U.S. patents have been reaffirmed through reexamination proceedings with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (the “USPTO”).
We seek patents
for inventions that contribute to our business and technology strategy. We have obtained patent licenses for certain technologies where such licenses are necessary or
advantageous. Unless and until patents are issued on the pending applications, no patent rights on those applications can be enforced.
Over the past five years, we have generated royalties from licensing certain of our patents and have enforced these patents against companies using our patented
technology without our permission. We have pending patent infringement lawsuits against several companies. In each case, we are seeking at least a reasonable royalty for the
infringement of the patent(s) in suit, a permanent injunction against continued infringement and attorneys' fees, interest and costs.
We own and use a number of trademarks in connection with our services, including word and logo trademarks for eFax, MyFax, eFax Corporate, eVoice, KeepItSafe,
Fusemail, Onebox, PCMag, IGN and AskMen, among others. Many of these trademarks are registered in the U.S. and other countries, and numerous trademark applications are
pending in the U.S. and several non-U.S. jurisdictions. We hold numerous Internet domain names, including “efax.com”, “efaxcorporate.com”, “myfax.com”, “fax.com”
,
“evoice.com”, “keepitsafe.com”, “fusemail.com”, “campaigner.com”, “onebox.com”, “pcmag.com”, “techbargains.com”, “ign.com” “askmen.com”
and "Speedtest.net", among
others. We have filed to protect our rights to our brands in certain alternative top-level domains such as “.org”, “.net“, “.biz”, “.info” and “.us”, among others.
Like other technology-
based businesses, we face the risk that we will be unable to protect our intellectual property and other proprietary rights, and the risk that we will be
found to have infringed the proprietary rights of others. For more information regarding these risks, please refer to the section entitled Risk Factors contained in Item 1A of this
Annual Report on Form 10-K.
Government Regulation
We are subject to a number of foreign and domestic laws and regulations that affect companies conducting business over the Internet and, in some cases, using services of
third-
party telecommunications and Internet service providers. These include, among others, laws and regulations addressing privacy, data storage, retention and security, freedom
of expression, content, taxation, DIDs, advertising and intellectual property. We are not a regulated telecommunications provider in the U.S. For information about the risks we
face with respect to governmental regulation, please see Item 1A of this Annual Report on Form 10-K entitled Risk Factors.
Seasonality
Our Business Cloud Services revenues are impacted by the number of effective business days in a given period. We traditionally experience lower than average Business
Cloud Services usage and customer sign-ups in the fourth quarter. Revenues
- 7 -