2/24/2018 S-1 Table of Contents • continued innovation; and • pricing. We believe we compete favorably across these factors and are largely unhindered by legacy constraints. However, some of our competitors may have greater name recognition, longer operating histories, more varied services, the ability to bundle a broader range of products and services, larger marketing budgets, established marketing relationships, access to larger user bases, major distribution agreements with hardware manufacturers and resellers, and greater financial, technical, and other resources. Intellectual Property We believe that our intellectual property rights are valuable and important to our business. We rely on patents, patent applications, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, know­how license agreements, confidentiality procedures, non­disclosure agreements, employee disclosure and invention assignment agreements, and other contractual rights to establish and protect our proprietary rights. In addition, from time to time we’ve purchased patents, inbound licenses, trademarks, domain names, and patent applications from third parties. We have over 600 issued patents and more than 600 pending patent applications in the United States and abroad. These patents and patent applications seek to protect our proprietary inventions relevant to our business. In addition, we have a large number of inbound licenses to key patents in the file collaboration, storage, syncing, and sharing markets. We have trademark rights in our name, our logo, and other brand indicia, and have trademark registrations for select marks in the United States and many other jurisdictions around the world. We also have registered domain names for websites that we use in our business, such as www.dropbox.com, and similar variations. We intend to pursue additional intellectual property protection to the extent we believe it would be beneficial and cost effective. Despite our efforts to protect our intellectual property rights, they may not be respected in the future or may be invalidated, circumvented, or challenged. In addition, the laws of various foreign countries where our products are distributed may not protect our intellectual property rights to the same extent as laws in the United States. Legal Proceedings We are currently involved in, and may in the future be involved in, legal proceedings, claims, and government investigations in the ordinary course of business, including legal proceedings with third parties asserting infringement of their intellectual property rights. For example, in April 2015, Synchronoss Technologies, Inc., a public company that provides cloud­based products, filed a patent infringement lawsuit against us in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, claiming three counts of patent infringement and seeking injunctive relief. The case was subsequently transferred to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. We do not currently believe that this matter is likely to have a material adverse impact on our consolidated results of operations, cash flows, or our financial position, and we intend to vigorously defend this lawsuit, and believe we have valid defenses to the claims. However, any litigation is inherently uncertain, and any judgment or injunctive relief entered against us or any adverse settlement could materially and adversely impact our business, results of operations, financial condition, and prospects. Future litigation may be necessary, among other things, to defend ourselves or our users by determining the scope, enforceability, and validity of third­party proprietary rights or to establish our proprietary rights. The results of any current or future litigation cannot be predicted with certainty, and regardless of the outcome, litigation can have an adverse impact on us because of defense and settlement costs, diversion of management resources, and other factors. 124 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1467623/000119312518055809/d451946ds1.htm 132/235