We may not be able to protect the intellectual property rights upon which we rely, or the products and services utilized by us and our suppliers and service providers may infringe on intellectual property rights owned by others.
We rely on various patent, service mark, trademark, and trade secret laws and contractual restrictions to establish and protect our proprietary rights. Despite these actions, they only offer limited protection and may not prevent the misappropriation of our rights. Also, we may not be able to discover or determine the extent of or protect against any unauthorized use of our proprietary rights, which may increase the cost of protecting these rights or reduce our revenues. Any of these factors could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and operating results. We also purchase products from suppliers, including device suppliers, and outsource services to service providers, including billing and customer care functions, that incorporate or utilize intellectual property. We and some of our suppliers and service providers have received, and may receive in the future, assertions and claims from third parties that the products or software utilized by us or our suppliers and service providers infringe on the patents or other intellectual property rights of these third parties. These claims could require us or an infringing supplier or service provider to cease certain activities or to cease selling the relevant products and services. These claims can be time-consuming and costly to defend and divert management resources. If these claims are successful, we could be forced to pay significant damages or stop selling certain products or services or stop using certain trademarks, which could adversely affect our results of operations.
Negative outcomes of legal proceedings may adversely affect our business and financial condition.
We are regularly involved in a number of legal proceedings before various courts. These proceedings may be complicated, costly, and disruptive to our business operations. We may incur significant expenses in defending these matters and may be required to pay significant fines, awards, or settlements. In addition, litigation or other proceedings could result in restrictions on our current or future manner of doing business. Any of these potential outcomes, such as judgments, awards, settlements, or orders could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, operating results, or ability to do business.
Our reputation and business may be harmed and we may be subject to legal claims if there is a loss, disclosure, misappropriation of, unauthorized access to, or other security breach of our proprietary or sensitive information. Any disruption of our business operations due to a cyber attack, even for a limited amount of time, may adversely affect our business and financial condition.
Our information technology and other systems—including those of our third-party service providers—that maintain and transmit our proprietary information, the confidential information of our business partners and our employees, and our subscribers’ information, including credit card information, location data, or other personal information, may be compromised by a malicious third-party penetration of our network security, including by state-sponsored parties, or company employees or external actors, and impacted by advertent or inadvertent actions or inactions by our employees and agents. As a result, our proprietary or confidential information or the proprietary or confidential information of our business partners, employees and subscribers may be lost, disclosed, accessed, used, corrupted, destroyed, or taken without consent. Cyber attacks, such as the use of malware, computer viruses, dedicated denial of service attacks, or other means for disruption or unauthorized access, and data breaches have increased in frequency, scope, and potential harm in recent years. Cyber attacks may occur in conjunction with physical attacks on our network infrastructure. We also purchase equipment and software from third parties that could contain software defects, Trojan horses, malware, or other means by which third parties could access our network or the information stored or transmitted on such network or equipment.
While, to date, we are not aware of any cyber attacks or other cyber incidents that, individually or in the aggregate, have been material to our operations or financial condition, the preventive actions we take to reduce the risk of cyber incidents and protect our information technology and networks may be insufficient to repel a cyber attack in the future. In addition, the expenses of such preventative actions, including insurance coverage that we maintain relating to cybersecurity incidents, may be significant, which may adversely affect our results of operations. Any disruption of the information technology systems that are necessary to conducting normal business operations due to a cyber attack, even for a limited amount of time, may prevent us from conducting normal business operations and adversely affect our financial condition. Any major compromise of our data or network security or that of our third-party service suppliers, failure to prevent or mitigate a loss of our services or network, our proprietary information, or our subscribers’ information, and delays in detecting any such compromise or loss, even for a limited amount of time, could disrupt our operations, impact our reputation and subscribers’ willingness to purchase our service, and subject us to significant additional expenses. Such expenses could include incentives offered to existing subscribers and other business relationships in order to retain their business, increased expenditures on cyber security measures and the use of alternate resources, lost revenues from business interruption, significant penalties under privacy laws, and litigation, which could be material. Furthermore, the potential expenses associated with any such cyber attacks could be greater than the insurance coverage we maintain.