Our commercial success depends in part on our ability to protect our intellectual property and proprietary rights. We rely on a combination of trademark, patent, trade secret and copyright laws, as well as confidentiality and other contractual restrictions to establish and protect our proprietary technology and other intellectual property rights. These laws are subject to change and certain agreements may not be fully enforceable, which could restrict our ability to protect our intellectual property rights. In addition, these legal means may afford only limited protection and may not prevent others from independently developing products, processes or other technologies similar to, or duplicative of, ours, or permit us to gain or keep any competitive advantage. Despite our efforts to protect our products, processes and other technologies, such efforts may not adequately protect us and unauthorized parties may attempt to copy aspects of our products, processes and other technologies, or obtain and use our trade secrets and other confidential information. Additionally, due to the highly competitive space in which we operate, competitors may file patent applications that, if granted, could hinder our ability to enter into new product categories and develop new products.
We rely on patents to protect our products, processes and other technologies and expect to continue to apply for additional patent protection for the proprietary aspects of our current and future products, processes and other technologies. We cannot offer any assurances about which, if any, patents will be issued from any of our patent applications, the breadth of any granted patents, or whether any granted patents will be found invalid or unenforceable or will be challenged by third parties. Any successful proceeding challenging the validity, enforceability or scope of our patents or any other future patents owned by or, if applicable, licensed to us could deprive us of rights necessary for the successful commercialization of products that we may develop and may require us to re-engineer or cease making, marketing or selling our affected products. In addition, our granted patents and patent applications may cover only certain aspects of our products, and competitors and other third parties may be able to circumvent or design around our patents or create new products that achieve similar or better results without infringing the patents we own, any of which may have an adverse effect on our sales or market position. The term of any individual patent depends on applicable law in the country where the patent is granted. In the United States, provided all maintenance fees are timely paid, a patent generally has a term of 20 years from its application filing date or earliest claimed non-provisional filing date. Extensions may be available under certain circumstances, but the life of a patent and, correspondingly, the protection it affords is limited. Further, our ability to enforce our patent rights depends on our ability to detect infringement, especially with our process patents; it may be difficult to detect infringers that do not advertise the process that are used in connection with their products. Moreover, it may be difficult or impossible to obtain evidence of infringement in a competitor's or potential competitor's products.
Because some patent applications are confidential for a period of time after they are filed, we cannot know, until such time has lapsed, that we were the first to file on the processes technologies covered in one or several of our patent applications related to our products. Therefore, there is a risk we could adopt a process or technology without knowledge of a pending patent application, which process or technology would infringe a third-party patent once that patent is issued. Furthermore, at any time during the lifetime of a patent or patent application, claims on the right to the underlying process or technology may be raised, which could harm or otherwise hinder our possibility to exercise such process or technology. For example, a derivation proceeding may be provoked by a third party, or instituted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (the "USPTO"), to determine who was the first to invent any of the subject matter covered by the patent claims of our patents or patent applications.
Patent law can be highly uncertain and involve complex legal and factual questions for which important principles remain unresolved. In the United States and in many international jurisdictions, policy regarding the breadth of claims allowed in patents can be inconsistent and/or unclear. The U.S. Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit have made, and will likely continue to make, changes in how the patent laws of the United States are interpreted. Similarly, international courts and governments have made, and will continue to make, changes in how the patent laws in their respective countries are interpreted. In addition, the European patent system is relatively stringent in the type of amendments that are allowed during prosecution, and the complexity and uncertainty of European patent laws has also increased in recent years. We cannot predict future changes in the interpretation of patent laws by U.S. and international judicial bodies or changes to patent laws that might be enacted into law by U.S. and international legislative bodies.
Moreover, in the United States, the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (the "Leahy-Smith Act") enacted in September 2011, brought significant changes to the U.S. patent system, including a change from a "first to invent" system to a "first to file" system. Other changes in the Leahy-Smith Act affect the way patent applications are prosecuted, redefine prior art and may affect patent litigation. The USPTO developed new regulations and procedures to govern administration of the Leahy-Smith Act, and many of the substantive changes to patent law associated with the Leahy-Smith Act became effective on March 16, 2013. The Leahy-Smith Act and its implementation could increase the uncertainties and costs surrounding the prosecution of our patent applications and the enforcement or defense of our issued patents, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We believe that our brands have substantial value and have contributed significantly to the success of our business and reinforce consumers' favorable perception of our products. We rely on trademark protection to protect our brands and have registered or applied to register many of our trademarks, including "Oatly" (in various forms), "Wow No Cow" and "Post-Milk Generation". We cannot assure that we will be able to register and/or enforce our trademarks in all jurisdictions as the requirement for trademarks registrability and the scope of trademark protection in different jurisdictions can be inconsistent. In addition, third parties may oppose our trademark applications, or otherwise challenge our use of the trademarks, and our trademark rights and related registrations have been, are being and may be challenged and could be canceled or narrowed. In the event our trademarks are successfully challenged and we lose rights to use those trademarks, we can be forced to rebrand our products, which could result in loss of brand recognition and require us to devote resources to marketing new brands. Third parties also have adopted, and may adopt, trade names or trademarks that are the same as or similar to ours, especially in a jurisdiction we have yet to cover, thereby impeding our ability to build brand identity and possibly leading to market confusion. Over the long term, if we are unable to successfully establish name recognition and/or register or protect our trademarks and trade names, we may not be able to compete effectively and our business may be adversely affected.
We also rely on unpatented proprietary expertise, recipes and formulations and other trade secrets and copyright protection to develop and maintain our competitive position. Whether we choose to seek legal protection through patent registration or, alternatively, seek to maintain trade secrecy, involves a risk assessment that could result in a competitor gaining patent protection on something that we kept as a trade secret, which could result in the infringement of such competitor's patent after such intellectual property was made publicly available, which could negatively impact our ability to provide any products created by using such intellectual property and result in a loss of sales.
If we do not keep our trade secrets and other proprietary information confidential, others may produce products with our recipes or formulations. Our confidentiality agreements with our employees and certain of our consultants, contract employees, suppliers and independent contractors, including some of our co-manufacturers who use our formulations to manufacture our products, generally require that all information made known to them be kept strictly confidential. Nevertheless, trade secrets are difficult to protect. Although we attempt to protect our trade secrets and other proprietary information, our confidentiality agreements and other measures may not effectively provide meaningful protection our proprietary information and in the event of any unauthorized use or disclosure of such information, and we may not have adequate remedies for the misappropriation or other unauthorized use of such information. In addition, others may independently discover our trade secrets, in which case we would not be able to assert trade secret rights against such parties. Further, some of our formulations have been developed by or with our suppliers and co-manufacturers. As a result, we may not be able to prevent others from using similar formulations, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Certain foreign countries do not protect intellectual property rights as fully as they are protected in the United States and, accordingly, intellectual property protection may be limited or unavailable in some foreign countries where we choose to do business. It may therefore be more difficult for us to successfully challenge the use of our intellectual property rights by other parties in these countries, which could diminish the value of our products or brands and cause our competitive position and growth to suffer. Filing, prosecuting and defending our intellectual property in all countries throughout the world may be prohibitively expensive. The lack of adequate legal protections of intellectual property or failure of legal remedies for related actions in jurisdictions outside of the United States could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Even if we successfully maintain our intellectual property rights, we may be unable to enforce those rights against third parties. Monitoring for unauthorized use, infringement, misappropriation or other violations of our intellectual property rights can be expensive and time-consuming, and we are unlikely to be able to detect all instances of such violations. Furthermore, if we do litigate, litigation, regardless of merit, is inherently uncertain and our success cannot be assured. Any litigation could be lengthy and result in substantial costs and diversion of our resources and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations, regardless of its outcome. In addition, if any third party copies or imitates our products or uses names and logos similar to our trademarks in a manner that affects consumer perception of our products or brand, our reputation and sales could suffer whether or not these violate our intellectual property rights. For further discussion, see "-Risks Related to Our Business and Industry-Litigation or legal proceedings could expose us to significant liabilities and have a negative impact on our reputation or business".
Third parties may also in the future assert, that we have infringed, misappropriated, or otherwise violated their intellectual property rights (including with respect to any existing registrations held by such third parties), and as we face increasing competition, the possibility of intellectual property rights claims against us grows. We could be targeted for litigation and we may not be able to assert counterclaims against parties that sue us for patent, or other intellectual property infringement. In addition, various "non-practicing entities" that own patents and other intellectual property rights may attempt to aggressively assert claims in order to extract value from us as a product company. Additionally, when we introduce new products, including in territories where we currently do not have an offering, our exposure to patent and other intellectual property claims from competitors and non-practicing entities will increase. It is difficult to predict whether assertions of third-party intellectual property rights or any infringement or misappropriation claims arising from such assertions will substantially harm our business, financial condition and results of operations. If we are forced to defend against any infringement or misappropriation claims, even those without merit, we may be required to (i) expend significant time and financial resources on the defense of such claims, (ii) cease making, marketing or selling the products, or using our processes or technologies that incorporate the challenged intellectual property, (iii) re-engineer or rebrand our products or re-design our packaging, or (iv) enter into royalty or licensing agreements in order to obtain the right to use a third party's intellectual property (and any such agreements, if required, may not be available to us on acceptable terms or at all). Furthermore, an adverse outcome of a dispute may require us to pay significant damages, which may be even greater if we are found to have willfully infringed upon a party's intellectual property. Even if resolved in our favor, litigation or other legal proceedings relating to intellectual property claims may result in reputational loss and could distract our management personnel and other employees from their normal responsibilities.