LOGM 2017 Annual Report

in the past resulted in a lengthy sales cycle, typically several months. We spend substantial time, effort and money on our enterprise sales efforts without any assurance that these efforts will produce any sales. In addition, service subscriptions are frequently subject to budget constraints and unplanned administrative, processing and other delays. If sales expected from a specific customer for a particular quarter are not realized in that quarter or at all, our results could fall short of public expectations and our business, operating results and financial con- dition could be adversely affected. Adverse economic conditions or reduced IT spending may adversely impact our revenues and profitability. Our business depends on the overall demand for IT and on the economic health of our current and prospective customers. The use of our service is often discretionary and may involve a commitment of capital and other resources. Weak economic conditions in the United States, European Union and other key international econo- mies may affect the rate of IT spending and could adversely impact our customers’ ability or willingness to pur- chase our services, delay prospective customers’ purchasing decisions, reduce the value or duration of their subscription contracts, or affect renewal rates, all of which could have an adverse effect on our business, operat- ing results and financial condition. Our success depends in large part on our ability to protect and enforce our intellectual property rights. We rely on a combination of patent, copyright, service mark, trademark and trade secret laws, as well as con- fidentiality procedures and contractual restrictions, to establish and protect our intellectual property rights, all of which provide only limited protection. In addition, we have patented certain technologies used to provide our services and have additional patents pending. We cannot assure you that any patents will issue from our currently pending patent applications in a manner that gives us the protection sought, if at all, or that any future patents issued will not be challenged, invalidated or circumvented. Any patents that may issue in the future from pending or future patent applications may not provide sufficiently broad protection or they may not prove to be enforce- able in actions against alleged infringers. Also, we cannot assure you that any future service mark or trademark registrations will be issued for pending or future applications or that any registered service marks or trademarks will be enforceable or provide adequate protection of our proprietary rights. We endeavor to enter into agreements with our employees and contractors and agreements with parties with whom we do business to limit access to and disclosure of our proprietary information. The steps we have taken, however, may not prevent unauthorized use or the reverse engineering of our technology. Moreover, others may independently develop technologies that are competitive to ours or infringe our intellectual property. Enforce- ment of our intellectual property rights also depends on our successful legal actions against these infringers, but these actions may not be successful, even when our rights have been infringed. Furthermore, effective patent, trademark, service mark, copyright and trade secret protection may not be avail- able in every country in which our services are available. In addition, the legal standards relating to the validity, enforceability and scope of protection of intellectual property rights in Internet-related industries are uncertain and still evolving. Our use of “open source” software could negatively affect our ability to sell our services and subject us to possible litigation. A portion of the technologies we license incorporate so-called “open source” software, and we may incorporate additional open source software in the future. Open source software is generally licensed by its authors or other third parties under open source licenses. If we fail to comply with these licenses, we may be subject to certain conditions, including requirements that we offer our services that incorporate the open source software for no cost, that we make available source code for modifications or derivative works we create based upon, incorporat- ing or using the open source software and/or that we license such modifications or derivative works under the terms of the particular open source license. If an author or other third party that distributes such open source software were to allege that we had not complied with the conditions of one or more of these licenses, we could be required to incur significant legal expenses defending against such allegations and could be subject to sig- nificant damages, enjoined from the sale of our services that contained the open source software and required to comply with the foregoing conditions, which could disrupt the distribution and sale of some of our services. 22