Digimarc CORP - Annual Report: 2017 (Form 10-K)

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

(Mark One)

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2017

OR

For the transition period from          to          

Commission File Number 001-34108

DIGIMARC CORPORATION

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

9405 SW Gemini Drive, Beaverton, Oregon 97008

(Address of principal executive offices) (Zip Code)

(503) 469-4800

(Registrant’s telephone number, including area code)

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: NONE

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act.    Yes  ☐    No  ☒

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act.    Yes  ☐    No  ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.    Yes  ☒    No  ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files).    Yes  ☒    No  ☐

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K.  ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act.  ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act).    Yes  ☐    No  ☒

The aggregate market value of common stock, par value $0.001 per share, held by non-affiliates of the registrant, based on the closing price of our common stock on the Nasdaq Global Market on the last business day of the registrant’s most recently completed fiscal second quarter (June 30, 2017), was approximately $435 million. Shares of common stock beneficially held by each officer and director have been excluded from this computation because these persons may be deemed to be affiliates. This determination of affiliate status is not necessarily a conclusive determination for any other purposes.

As of February 16, 2018, 11,859,284 shares of the registrant’s common stock were outstanding.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

Portions of the registrant’s proxy statement pursuant to Regulation 14A (the “Proxy Statement”) for its 2018 annual meeting of shareholders are incorporated by reference into Items 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 of Part III of this Annual Report on Form 10-K. The registrant intends to file the Proxy Statement not later than 120 days after the end of the fiscal year covered by this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Table of Contents

PART I

Unless the context otherwise requires, references in this Annual Report on Form 10-K to “Company,” “Digimarc,” “we,” “our” and “us” refer to Digimarc Corporation.

All dollar amounts are in thousands except per share amounts or unless otherwise noted. The percentages within the following tables may not sum to 100% due to rounding.

Digimarc, Digimarc Discover and Guardian are registered trademarks of Digimarc Corporation. This Annual Report on Form 10-K may also include trademarks and trade names owned by other parties, and all other such trademarks and trade names mentioned in this Annual Report on Form 10-K are the property of their respective owners.

The following discussion of Digimarc’s business contains forward-looking statements relating to future events or the future financial performance of Digimarc. Our actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements. Please see the discussion regarding forward-looking statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K in Item 7, Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations, under the caption “Forward-Looking Statements.”

The following discussion of our business should be read in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements and the related notes and other financial information appearing elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Overview

Digimarc Corporation, an Oregon corporation founded in 2008, enables governments, banks and businesses around the world to automatically and reliably identify and interact with virtually any media. We have pioneered the Digimarc® Intuitive Computing Platform (ICP^TM), a comprehensive set of technologies for identifying, discovering and interacting with digitally-enhanced media. The platform includes Digimarc Barcode, a proprietary method for imperceptibly enhancing packaging, print, images, thermal labels, audio and other objects with data that is detected by enabled devices, such as smart phones, computers, barcode scanners and machine-vision equipment. Digimarc Discover software enables an ecosystem of connected devices to easily identify content or materials and deliver information.

Our media identification and discovery innovations enable our business partners to create numerous applications across a wide range of media content, including solutions that:

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Our Intuitive Computing Platform has a proprietary foundation in signal processing innovation known as “digital watermarking,” which allows imperceptible digital information to be embedded in all forms of digitally designed, produced or distributed media content and many physical objects, including photographs, movies, music, television, personal identification documents, financial instruments, industrial parts and product packages. We refer to this embedded information as the Digimarc Barcode. This digital information can be detected and read by a wide range of computers, smartphones, tablets and other digital devices enabled with our proprietary reading software. We refer to this reading software as Digimarc Discover.

Our inventions allow our business partners and customers to provide persistent digital identities for virtually any media content that is digitally processed at some point during its lifecycle. Our technology can be applied to images, video, and audio to supply a wide range of consumer engagement, media management and security solutions across multiple consumer and government industry sectors. Over the years our enabling software and business processes, and associated intellectual property portfolio have grown to encompass many related technologies.

We provide our solutions directly and through our business partners. Our inventions provide a powerful element of document security, giving rise to a long-term relationship with a consortium of central banks (the “Central Banks”), and many leading companies in the information technology industry. We and our business partners have successfully propagated the use of our technology in music, movies, television broadcasts, digital images, e-publications and printed materials. Digimarc Barcodes have been used in these applications to improve media rights and asset management, reduce piracy and counterfeiting losses, improve marketing programs, permit more efficient and effective distribution of valuable media content and enhance consumer entertainment and commercial experiences.

Digimarc Barcodes can be used to enhance all forms of media and are generally imperceptible to human senses, but quickly detected by computers, networks or other digital devices like smartphones and tablets. Unlike traditional barcodes and tags, our solution does not require content owners to give up valuable visual space on their media content; nor does it impact the overall layout or aesthetics of their media content. Digimarc Barcodes are generally imperceptible in normal use and do all that visible barcodes do, but perform better. Our Digimarc Discover platform delivers a range of rich media experiences to its readers on their smartphones or tablets across multiple media formats, including print, audio, video and packaging. Unique to the Digimarc Discover platform is its seamless multi-modal use of various content identification technologies as needed, including Digimarc Barcode when present.

Banknote counterfeit deterrence was the first commercially successful large scale use of our technologies. Innovations based on our existing digital watermarking technology and experience have been leveraged to create new products to deter counterfeiting and tampering of driver licenses and other government-issued secure credentials. In parallel, our business partners, under patent or technology licenses from us, are delivering digital watermarking solutions to track and monitor the distribution of music, images, television and movies to consumers.

In November of 2007, we announced a relationship with The Nielsen Company (US) LLC (“Nielsen”) to license our patents in support of Nielsen’s industry leading television audience measurement solutions.

In October 2010, we entered into a patent licensing arrangement with IV Digital Multimedia Inventions, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company affiliated with Intellectual Ventures (“IV”), pursuant to which we granted an exclusive license to sublicense, subject to pre-existing encumbrances and a grant-back license, an aggregate of approximately 900 of the 1,200 patents and applications held by us at the time the agreement was entered into, as noted below in the section titled “Technology and Intellectual Property.” The number of patents and applications licensed to IV is now approximately 520. Through ongoing development, our portfolio that was not licensed to IV has grown to over 620 patents and applications.

In December 2012, we entered into a renewal and extension through 2024 of the Counterfeit Deterrence System Development and License Agreement with the Central Banks, with a 5-year extension option.

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In January 2014, we introduced Digimarc Barcodes for use in consumer product packaging. These Digimarc Barcodes can contain the same information found in traditional universal product codes (“UPC”). The UPC information is invisibly repeated multiple times over the entire package surface making checkout faster and easier for both customers and cashiers. We partnered with Datalogic, a global leader in automatic data capture and industrial automation markets and producer of barcode readers, in introducing the Digimarc Barcode to the consumer product packaging market. Since then, additional scanner vendors and other channel partners have announced support for the Digimarc Barcode platform. Digimarc Barcodes can also connect mobile-enabled consumers directly from packaging to engaging mobile experiences such as additional product information, special offers, recommendations, reviews, social networks and more.

In January 2016, Digimarc and GS1 US, the U.S. operation of the organization that maintains the global standards for barcodes, announced a broad collaboration to help the industries served by GS1 to make effective use of Digimarc Barcode. GS1 US educates, trains and provides access to services to their 300,000 member businesses. Among other things, Digimarc and GS1 US are working to improve product identification for retailers and consumers with brand-certified, accurate product information via Digimarc Barcodes. In September 2016, Digimarc announced a similar collaboration with GS1 Germany.

In January 2018, we introduced Digimarc Barcode for use in thermal labels for fresh food products. These Digimarc Barcodes contain GS1 Application Identifiers for fresh foods, allowing retailers to dynamically adjust pricing on soon-to-be-expired fresh foods or sell items at a discount, instead of discarding them. Retail thermal labels with Digimarc Barcode scan even when ripped, creased, smudged or damaged, making checkout faster and easier for both customers and cashiers. We have partnered with multiple industry leading retail scale label manufacturers to introduce thermal labels enabled with Digimarc Barcode to the retail industry. Thermal labels enabled with Digimarc Barcode can also provide consumers an engaging mobile experience similar to Digimarc Barcode for consumer product packaging.

Financial Information About Geographic Areas

Financial information about geographic areas is included in Note 3 of our Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements.

Customers and Business Partners

Our revenue is generated through commercial and government applications of our technology. We derive our revenue primarily from development services, subscriptions for products and services, and licensing of our technology and patents. During 2017, we generated the majority of our revenue from development services under a long-term contract with the Central Banks, subscriptions to our anti-piracy and copyright protection services, and license fees/royalties from licensees.

In 2017, revenue from government contracts accounted for 56% of our total revenue. The Central Banks accounted for substantially all revenue generated under our government contracts. Our government contracts typically span one or more base years and multiple option periods. Government customers generally have the right to not exercise option periods. As part of our work with government customers, we must comply with and are affected by laws and regulations relating to the award, administration and performance of government contracts. Government contract laws and regulations affect how we do business with our government customers and, in some instances, impose added costs on our business.

Information about customers to be listed under Regulation S-K, Item 101(c)(1)(vii) is included in Note 3 of our Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements.

Products and Services

We provide media identification and management solutions to commercial entities and government customers and license our technology and patented inventions to other solution providers. Our largest government customer is the Central Banks, with whom we have been developing, deploying, supporting and enhancing a system to deter digital counterfeiting of currency using personal computers and digital reprographics for the last 19 years. We license primarily to commercial entities who use our technology and patented inventions in the media and entertainment industry. Commercial customers use a range of solutions from our business partners and us to identify, track, manage and protect content as it is distributed and consumed—either digitally or physically—and to

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enable new consumer applications to access networks and information from personal computers and mobile devices. Many movie studios, record labels, broadcasters, creative professionals and other customers rely on our technology as a cost-effective means to:

Digimarc Barcodes are easily embedded into all forms of media and are generally imperceptible to human senses, but quickly detected by computers, networks or other digital devices like smartphones. Unlike traditional barcodes and tags, our solution does not require content owners to give up valuable space on their media content; nor does it impact the overall layout or aesthetics of their media content. Our Digimarc Discover platform delivers a range of rich media experiences to smartphones across multiple media including print, audio, video and packaging. Unique to the Digimarc Discover platform is its ability to use various content identification technologies as needed, including our patented technology.

Digimarc Barcodes contain the same information found in traditional UPC codes used on consumer goods packing. The UPC information is invisibly repeated multiple times over the entire package surface making it easier to scan at front of store. We partnered with Datalogic, a global leader in automatic data capture and industrial automation markets and producer of barcode readers, in introducing the Digimarc Barcode to the consumer product packaging market. Since then additional scanner vendors and other channel partners have announced support for the Digimarc Barcode platform. Digimarc Barcodes can also connect mobile-enabled consumers directly from packaging to engaging mobile experiences such as additional product information, special offers, recommendations, reviews, social networks and more.

The market for patent licensing has become more challenging in recent years. As a result, we have shifted our focus from direct monetization through enforcement and licensing to facilitating progress toward the realization of our vision to enrich everyday living via pervasive, intuitive computing by:

Our current patent licensees include, among others, AlpVision SA, IV, Kantar SAS, NexGuard Labs B.V., Nielsen, OverDrive, Inc., Signum Technologies, Teletrax B.V., Verance Corporation (“Verance”) and Verimatrix, Inc.

Technology and Intellectual Property

We seek patent protection for our inventions to differentiate our products and technologies, mitigate infringement risks, and develop opportunities for licensing. Our broad patent portfolio covers a wide range of methods, applications, system architectures and processes.

Many of our patents relate to various methods for embedding and decoding digital information in images, video, and audio, whether the content is rendered in analog or digital formats. The digital information is generally embedded by making subtle modifications to the fundamental elements of the content itself, generally at a signal processing level. The changes necessary to embed this information are so subtle that they are generally not noticeable by people during normal use. Because the message is carried by the content itself, it is file-format independent. The embedded digital information generally survives most normal content transformations, including compression, edits, rotation, scaling, re-sampling, file-format transformations, copying, scanning and printing.

Our intellectual property contains many innovations in digital watermarking, content recognition (sometimes referred to as “fingerprinting”), digital rights management and related fields. To protect our inventions, we have

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implemented an extensive intellectual property protection program that relies on a combination of patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret laws, and nondisclosure agreements and other contracts. As a result, we believe we have one of the world’s most extensive patent portfolios in digital watermarking and related fields, with over 1,100 U.S. and foreign patents granted and applications pending as of December 31, 2017. We continue to develop and broaden our portfolio in the fields of media identification and management technology and related applications and systems. We devote significant resources to developing and protecting our inventions and continuously seek to identify and evaluate potential licensees for our patents. The patents in our portfolio have a life of approximately 20 years from the effective filing date, and up to 17 years after the patent has been granted.

For a discussion of activities and costs related to our research and development in the last three years, please read “Research, development and engineering” under Part II, Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.”

Markets

Our patented inventions are used in various media identification and management products and solutions supporting a variety of media objects, from movies and music to banknotes, secure credentials and consumer packaged goods. Each media object enabled by our inventions creates the potential for several applications, such as:

We believe the market for most of these applications is in the early stages of development and that existing solutions represent only a small portion of the potential market for our products, services and technology.

Competition

No single competitor or small number of competitors dominate our market. Our competitors vary depending on the application of our products and services. We generally compete with non-digital watermarking technologies for the security or marketing budgets of the producers and distributors of media objects, documents, products and advertising. These alternatives include, among other things, encryption-based security systems and technologies and solutions based on fingerprinting, pattern recognition, and traditional barcodes. Our competitive position in digital watermarking applications is strong because of our large, high-quality, sophisticated patent portfolio and our substantial and growing amount of intellectual property in related media security and management innovations that span basic technologies, applications, system designs and business processes. Our intellectual property portfolio allows us to use proprietary technologies that are well-regarded by our customers and partners, and not available to our competitors without a license. We compete based on the variety of features we offer and a traditional cost/benefit analysis against alternative technologies and solutions. We anticipate that our competitive position within some markets may be affected by factors such as reluctance to adopt new technologies and by changes in government regulations.

Backlog

Based on projected commitments we have for the periods under contract with our respective customers, we anticipate our current contracts as of December 31, 2017 will generate a minimum of $28 million in revenue, compared to $31 million as of December 31, 2016. We expect approximately $16 million of the $28 million to be recognized as revenue during 2018.

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Some factors that lead to increased backlog include:

Some factors that lead to decreased backlog include:

The mix of these factors, among others, dictates whether our backlog increases or decreases for any given period. Our backlog may not result in actual revenue in any particular period, because the orders, awards and contracts included in our backlog may be subject to modification, cancellation or suspension. We may not realize revenue on certain contracts, orders or awards included in our backlog or the timing of any realization may change.

Employees

At December 31, 2017, we had 207 full-time employees, including 76 in sales, marketing, operations and customer support; 98 in research, development and engineering, including intellectual property; and 33 in finance, administration, information technology and legal.

Our employees are not covered by any collective bargaining agreement, and we have never experienced a work stoppage. We believe that our relations with our employees are good.

Available Information

We make available free of charge through our website at www.digimarc.com our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, and amendments to these and other reports filed or furnished by us pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as soon as reasonably practicable after we file these materials with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows may be affected by a number of factors. The following risk factors identify risks of which we are aware and that we consider to be material to our business. If any of the following risks and uncertainties develops into actual events, our business, financial condition, results of operations or cash flows could be materially adversely affected. In that case, the trading price of our common stock could decline.

RISKS RELATED TO OUR BUSINESS

(1) As a purveyor of disruptive technology, if our channel partners and potential customers defer or delay adopting and implementing our technology, or if competitors or other market participants successfully engage in campaigns to discredit our technology, our revenues will be negatively affected. In addition, there are new and expanded components of our revenue engine that will need to be tested and proven.

While the Company’s legacy business remains strong, our primary source of revenue growth—Digimarc Discover^® and Digimarc Barcode—are subject to the market forces and adoption curves common to other disruptive technologies. The market is in early stages of development. The revenue model anticipates annual subscriptions will be the primary source of our income. If adoption of Digimarc Discover and Digimarc Barcode takes longer than anticipated, we will continue to experience operating losses.

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We expect companies marketing competing technologies to compete vigorously in the marketplace, and to seek to preserve their market share. To the extent these companies succeed in defending their market position, our ability to achieve profitable operations will be impeded.

With respect to anticipated sales growth and prospects for our Digimarc Discover and Digimarc Barcode products and services, our three major avenues for revenue generation include direct sales, web sales, and channel partners. Our growing direct sales force is relatively new, with an average tenure of less than two years with the Company. The redesign of our website to facilitate web-based sales is evolving. Most of our channel partners are new. Thus, the anticipated sources of revenue growth are new and unproven. We are executing strategies intended to make each of these means of revenue generation more effective, but we provide no assurance that we will execute these strategies successfully.

(2) Our future growth will depend to a material extent on the successful advocacy of our technology by channel partners to their members and customers, and implementation of our technology in solutions propagated by channel partners and provided by third parties.

Our business has long relied on the success of business partners. Our continuing success is largely dependent on a new generation of business partners supporting Digimarc Discover and Digimarc Barcode. We have entered into agreements with numerous channel partners to propagate and support Digimarc Discover and Digimarc Barcode, including brand deployment and pre-media service providers Southern Graphics Systems, LLC, Schawk, Inc., Sun Branding Solutions, and Diadeis, and consumer packaging solutions companies WestRock Company and Berry Plastics Group, Inc., all who offer Digimarc Barcode services to national and store brand owners and consumer products suppliers; HP, Inc., who can perform large scale serialization of unique identifiers; Perrigo Company, the world’s largest manufacturer of over-the-counter pharmaceutical products for the store brand market, to improve point-of-sale efficiency for retailers and provide consumers easier access to product information from enabled ‘smart’ labels; and platforms which provide unprecedented consumer engagement via smartphones, such as Shazam Entertainment Limited. Digimarc and GS1 US, the U.S. operation of the organization that maintains the global standards for barcodes, announced a broad collaboration to help the industries served by GS1 to make effective use of Digimarc Barcode. GS1 US educates, trains and provides access to services to their 300,000 member businesses. Among other things, Digimarc and GS1 US are working to improve product identification for retailers and consumers with brand-certified, accurate product information via Digimarc Barcodes. Digimarc has also entered into a similar collaboration with GS1 Germany.

If our channel partners are not successful in advocating and deploying our technology, we may not be able to achieve and sustain profitable operations. If other business partners who include our technology in their products or otherwise license our intellectual property for use in their products cease to do so, or we fail to obtain other partners who will incorporate, embed, integrate or bundle our technology, or these partners are unsuccessful in their efforts, expanding deployment of our technology and increasing revenues will be adversely affected. Consequently, our ability to increase revenue could be adversely affected and we may suffer other adverse effects to our business. In addition, if our technology does not perform according to market expectations, our future sales would suffer as customers seek and employ alternative technologies.

(3) If leading companies in the retail and consumer products industries or standard-setting bodies or institutions downplay, minimize or reject the use of our technology, deployment may be slowed and we may be unable to achieve or sustain profitable operations.

Many of our business endeavors, including the Digimarc Barcode, can be impeded or frustrated by larger, more influential companies or by standard-setting bodies or institutions downplaying, minimizing or rejecting the value or use of our technology. A negative position by such companies, bodies or institutions could result in obstacles for us that we would be incapable of overcoming and may block or impede the adoption of our technology. In addition, potential customers may delay or reject initiatives that relate to deployment of our technology. Such developments would make the achievement of our business objectives in this market difficult or impossible.

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(4) We are subject to risks encountered by companies developing and relying upon new technologies, products and services to achieve and sustain profitable operations.

Our business and prospects must be considered in light of the risks and uncertainties to which companies with new and rapidly evolving technology, products and services are exposed. These risks include the following:

Some key technologies and solutions of our patent or technology licensees are in the development stage. Consequently, products incorporating our technology and solutions are undergoing technological change and are in the early stages of introduction in the marketplace. Delays in the adoption of these products or adverse competitive developments may result in delays in the development of new revenue sources or the growth in our existing revenue streams. We may be required to incur unanticipated expenditures if product changes or improvements are required. Moreover, new industry standards might redefine the products that we or our licensees are able to sell, especially if these products are only in the prototype stage of development. If product changes or improvements are required, success in marketing these products by us or our licensees and achieving or sustaining profitability from these products could be delayed or halted.

(5) A significant portion of our current and potential future revenue is subject to commercial and government contracts and development of new markets that may involve unpredictable delays and other unexpected changes. Such volatility and uncertainty might limit our actual revenue in any given quarter or year.

We derive a significant portion of our revenue from contracts tied to development schedules or development of new markets, which could shift for months, quarters or years as the needs of our customers and the markets in which they participate change. Government agencies and commercial customers also face budget pressures that introduce added uncertainty. Any shift in development schedules, the markets in which we or our licensees participate, or customer procurement processes, which are outside our control and may not be predictable, could result in delays in bookings forecasted for any particular period, could affect the predictability of our quarterly and annual results, and might limit our actual revenue in any given quarter or year, resulting in reduced and less predictable revenue and adversely affecting profitability.

We are expanding into new markets, which involve inherent risk and unpredictability. In recent years, particularly with the proliferation of smartphones and increased consumer demands for product information, we have investigated other technologies that may provide attractive future opportunities, for example, in the packaging and publishing markets. These generally include technologies that leverage our strength in signal processing and support our vision for intuitive, pervasive computing. As we seek to expand outside our areas of historical expertise, we lack the history and insight that benefited us in the watermarking field. Although we have extensive experience in the commercial application of digital watermarking, we are investing in but may not be as well-positioned in these other disciplines. Accordingly, it may be difficult for us to replicate our watermarking success in other technologies we might pursue.

(6) A small number of customers account for a substantial portion of our revenue, and the loss of any large contract could materially disrupt our business.

Historically, we have derived a significant portion of our revenue from a limited number of customers. Five customers represented approximately 78% of our revenue for the year ended December 31, 2017. Most of our revenue comes from long-term contracts generally having terms of at least three to ten years, with some licenses for the life of the associated patents, which could be up to 20 years from the effective date. The agreements with our licensees generally provide for minimum and/or variable payment obligations. Some contracts we enter into contain

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termination for convenience provisions. If we were to lose such a contract for any reason, or if revenue from variable payment obligations do not replace revenue under the existing fixed payment obligations, our financial results could be adversely affected.

We expect to continue to depend upon a small number of customers for a significant portion of our revenue for the foreseeable future. The loss of, or decline in, orders or backlog from one or more major customers could reduce our revenue and have a material adverse effect on our financial results.

(7) We were not profitable in 2015, 2016 or 2017 and may not be able to return to or sustain profitability in the future, particularly if we were to lose large contracts or fail in our new market development initiatives. Sustained lack of profitability could cause us to incur asset impairment charges for long-lived assets and/or record valuation allowance against our deferred tax assets.

We incurred net losses in 2015, 2016 and 2017 largely due to increased levels of investments in our business to support product development and sales growth initiatives.

Returning to and maintaining profitability in the future will depend upon a variety of factors, including our ability to maintain and obtain more significant partnerships like we have with the Central Banks and acquiring new customers for Digimarc Discover, Digimarc Barcode and Guardian. Profitability will also depend on our efficiency in executing our business strategy and capitalizing on new opportunities. Various adverse developments, including the loss of large contracts or cost overruns on our existing contracts, could adversely affect our revenue, margins and profitability.

If we continue to incur operating losses, an impairment to the carrying value of our long-lived assets, including goodwill, acquired intangible assets, patent assets and property and equipment could result. We test for impairment of our long-lived assets when a triggering event occurs that would indicate that the carrying value may not be recoverable. Our methodology for assessing impairment may require management to make judgments and assumptions regarding future cash flows. Our projections of future cash flows are largely based on historical experience, and these projections may not be achieved. Changes to these financial projections used in our impairment analysis could lead to an impairment of all or a portion of our long-lived assets. Any such impairment charge could adversely affect our results of operations and our stock price. We evaluated our long-lived assets for impairment as of December 31, 2017 and concluded there was no impairment. We cannot guarantee, however, that our long-lived assets will not become impaired in the future.

We record valuation allowances on our deferred tax assets if, based on available evidence, it is more-likely-than-not that all or some portion of the assets will not be realized. The determination of whether our deferred tax assets are realizable requires management to identify and weigh all available positive and negative evidence. Management considers recent financial performance, projected future taxable income, scheduled reversals of deferred tax liabilities, tax planning strategies and other evidence in assessing the realizability of our deferred tax assets. Adjustments to our deferred tax assets could adversely affect our results of operations and our stock price. In 2014, we recorded a full valuation allowance against our deferred tax assets largely due to the cumulative loss we had incurred over the previous three years, which is considered a significant piece of negative evidence in assessing the realizability of deferred tax assets. As of December 31, 2017, we determined a full valuation allowance was still appropriate given continued losses. We will not record tax benefits on any future losses until its determined that those tax benefits will be realized.

(8) We may be adversely affected by variability of contracted arrangements.

We periodically agree to modify the terms of contractual arrangements with our customers, partners and licensees in response to changes in circumstances underlying the original contractual arrangements, and it is likely that we will do so in the future. As a result of this practice, the terms of our contractual arrangements with our customers, partners and licensees may vary over time and, depending on the particular modification, could have a material adverse effect on our financial position, results of operations or cash flows.

Some of our customers and licensees report royalties to us based on their revenue and their interpretation and allocation of contracted royalty obligations. It is possible that we may not agree with the judgments of our customers on such matters, and such disagreement may lead to potential disputes and reduced revenue to us. These disputes could result in a distraction to our management and may not result in increased revenues to us but may nevertheless

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result in friction between us and our customers, and potentially the loss of customers, which may ultimately be harmful to our business.

(9) The market for our products is highly competitive, and alternative technologies or larger companies that compete with us may be more successful than us in gaining market share, which would decrease our revenue and profits.

The markets in which we compete for business are intensely competitive and rapidly evolving. We expect competition to continue from both existing competitors and new market entrants. We face competition from other companies and from alternative technologies, including some of our customers and licensees. We also may face competition from unexpected sources.

Alternative technologies that may directly or indirectly compete with particular applications of our watermarking technologies include:

In the competitive environments in which we operate, product generation, development and marketing processes relating to technology are uncertain and complex, and require accurate prediction of demand as well as successful management of various risks inherent in technology development. In light of these uncertainties, it is possible that our failure to successfully accommodate future changes in technologies related to our technology could have a long-term negative effect on our growth and results of operations.

New developments are expected to continue, and discoveries by others, including current and potential competitors, possibly could render our services and products uncompetitive. Moreover, because of rapid technological changes, we may be required to expend greater amounts of time and money than anticipated to develop new products and services, which in turn may require greater revenue streams from those products and services to cover developmental costs. Many of the companies that compete with us for some of our business, as well as other companies with whom we may compete in the future, are larger and may have stronger brand recognition and greater technical, financial, marketing and political resources than we do. These attributes could enable these companies to have more success in the market than we have, either by providing better products or better pricing than we can provide. We may be unable to compete successfully against current or future participants in our market or against alternative technologies, and the competitive pressures we face may have a materially adverse effect on our financial position, results of operations or cash flows.

(10) An increase in our operations outside of the U.S. subjects us to risks additional to those to which we are exposed in our domestic operations.

We believe that revenue from sales of products and services to commercial, governmental and other customers outside the U.S. could represent a growing percentage of our total revenue in the future. Digimarc Discover is not bounded geographically, and we believe Digimarc Barcode will see global deployment. As such, certain contracts will be made and performed, in whole or in part, outside of the U.S. Similarly, for Guardian, we perform certain functions in various jurisdictions outside of the U.S. International operations are subject to a number of risks that

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can adversely affect our sales of products and services to customers outside of the U.S., or expose us to additional expense or liabilities, including the following:

We do not have an extensive operational infrastructure for international business. We generally depend on local or international business partners and subcontractors for performance of substantial portions of our business. These factors may result in greater risk of performance problems or of reduced profitability with respect to our international programs in these markets. In addition, if foreign customers, in particular foreign government authorities, terminate or delay the implementation of our products and services, it may be difficult for us, or we may not be able, to recover our potential losses.

(11) We depend on our management and key employees for our future success. If we are not able to retain, hire or integrate these employees, we may not be able to meet our commitments.

Our success depends to a significant extent on the performance and continued service of our management and our intellectual property team. The loss of the services of any of these employees could limit our growth or undermine customer relationships.

Due to the high level of technical expertise that our industry requires, our ability to successfully develop, market, sell, license and support our products, services, and intellectual property depends to a significant degree upon the continued contributions of our key personnel in engineering, sales, marketing, operations, legal and licensing, many of whom would be difficult to replace. We believe our future success will depend in large part upon our ability to retain our current key employees and our ability to attract, integrate and retain new personnel in the future. It may not be practical for us to match the compensation some of our employees could be offered by other employers. In addition, we may encounter difficulties in hiring and retaining employees because of concerns related to our financial performance or operating results. These circumstances may have a negative effect on the market price of our common stock, and employees and prospective employees may factor in the uncertainties relating to our stability and the value of any equity-based incentives in their decisions regarding employment opportunities and decide to leave our employ or decline employment offers. Moreover, our business is based in large part on patented technology, which is a unique and sophisticated signal processing technology. New employees require substantial training, involving significant resources and management attention. Competition for experienced personnel in our business can be intense. If we do not succeed in attracting new, qualified personnel or in integrating, retaining and motivating our current personnel, our growth and ability to deliver products and services that our customers require may be hampered. Although our employees generally have executed agreements containing non-competition clauses, we do not assure you that a court would enforce all of the terms of these clauses or the agreements generally. If these clauses were not fully enforced, our employees could freely join our competitors. Although we generally attempt to control access to and distribution of our proprietary information by our employees, we do not assure you that the confidential nature of our proprietary information will be maintained in the course of such future employment. Any of these events could have a material adverse effect on our financial position, results of operations or cash flows.

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(12) We may acquire or invest in other companies or technologies in the future, which could divert management’s attention, result in additional dilution to our stockholders, increase expenses, disrupt our operations and harm our operating results.

We acquired Attributor Corporation (“Attributor”) in December 2012, and we may in the future acquire, or invest in businesses, products or technologies that we believe could complement or expand our current product and service offerings, enhance our technical capabilities, expand our operations into new markets or otherwise offer growth opportunities. The pursuit of potential acquisitions may divert the attention of management and cause us to incur various expenses related to identifying, investigating and pursuing suitable acquisitions, whether or not they are consummated.

There are inherent risks in integrating and managing acquisitions. We may not be able to assimilate or integrate the acquired personnel, operations and technologies successfully or effectively manage the combined business following an acquisition. We also may not achieve the anticipated benefits from an acquired business due to a number of factors, including:

Acquisitions could also result in dilutive issuances of equity securities or the incurrence of debt, which could adversely affect our financial position. In addition, if an acquired business fails to meet our expectations, our operating results, business and financial condition may suffer.

(13) (a) We may not be able to adequately secure patent or other protection for our technologies.

Our business depends in part on securing protection for our proprietary technology and successfully licensing our technology to third parties. To protect our intellectual property portfolio, we rely on a combination of patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret rights, confidentiality procedures and licensing arrangements. Although we regularly apply for patents to protect our intellectual property, there is no guarantee that we will secure patent protection for any particular technology we develop.

Changes in the U.S. and foreign patent laws, or in the interpretation of existing laws, may adversely affect our ability to secure or enforce patents. For example, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in 2014 limiting patent eligibility of computer implemented inventions. The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act of 2011 (the “America Invents Act”) also codifies several changes to the U.S. patent laws, including the creation of a post-grant inter partes review process to challenge patents after they have issued. The America Invents Act allows third parties to petition the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office or comparable government authorities in other jurisdictions to review and reconsider the patentability of any of our inventions claimed in our issued patents. Any such proceeding may result in one or more of our patent claims becoming limited, or being invalidated altogether. A limitation or invalidation of our patent claims could adversely affect our financial position and our operating results.

Patents have finite lives, and our ability to continue to commercially exploit our patents is limited to the term of the patents. Our earliest patents began expiring in July 2012. The size and strength of our portfolio depends on the number of patents that have been granted, offset by the number of patents that expire, in any given year. We

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continue to develop our patent portfolio, but we do not assure you that we will be able to exploit newer patents to the extent that we have exploited our earlier patents.

As part of our confidentiality procedures, we generally enter into non-disclosure agreements with our employees, directors, consultants and corporate partners, and attempt to control access to and distribution of our technology, solutions, documentation and other proprietary information. Despite these procedures, third parties could copy or otherwise obtain and make unauthorized use of our technology, solutions or other proprietary information or independently develop similar technologies, solutions or information. The steps that we have taken to prevent misappropriation of our solutions, technology or other proprietary information may not succeed.

We do not assure you that the protection of our proprietary rights will be adequate or that our competitors will not independently develop similar technologies, duplicate our services or design around any of our patents or other intellectual property rights.

(b) We may not be successful in enforcing our intellectual property rights against third parties.

Unlicensed copying and use of our intellectual property or infringement of our intellectual property rights may result in the loss of revenue to us and cause us other harm. If we encounter a company that we believe is infringing our intellectual property rights, we may try to negotiate a license arrangement with such party. If we try and are unable to negotiate a license or secure the agreement of such alleged infringing party to cease its activities, we must make decisions as to how best to enforce our intellectual property rights, which may result in additional costs.

The process of negotiating a license with a third party can be lengthy, and may take months or even years in some circumstances. It is possible that third parties who we believe are infringing our intellectual property rights are unwilling to license our intellectual property from us on terms we can accept, or at all.

If we cannot persuade a third party who we believe is infringing our technology to enter into a license with us, we may be required to consider other alternatives to enforce our rights, including commencing litigation. The decision to commence litigation over infringement of a patent is complex and may lead to several risks to us, including the following, among others:

Also, enforcement of patent protection throughout the world is generally established on a country-by-country basis and we may not be able to enforce our patents in foreign jurisdictions.

If we fail to protect our intellectual property rights adequately, if there are adverse changes in applicable laws, or if we become involved in litigation relating to our intellectual property rights or the intellectual property rights of others, our business could be seriously harmed. In such cases, the value ascribed to our intellectual property could diminish, we may incur significant legal expenses that could harm our results of operations and our patents or other intellectual property rights may be limited or invalidated. Any of the foregoing could have a negative effect on the value of our common stock.

(c) We may be subject to infringement claims and other litigation, which could adversely affect our business.

As more companies engage in business activities relating to digital watermarking, and develop corresponding intellectual property rights, it is increasingly likely that claims may arise which assert that some of our products or

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services infringe upon other parties’ intellectual property rights. These claims could subject us to costly litigation and divert management resources. These claims may require us to pay significant damages, cease production of infringing products, terminate our use of infringing technology or develop non-infringing technologies. In these circumstances, continued use of our technology may require that we acquire licenses to the intellectual property that is the subject of the alleged infringement, and we might not be able to obtain these licenses on commercially reasonable terms or at all. Our use of protected technology may result in liability that threatens our continuing operation.

Some of our contracts include indemnity and similar provisions regarding our non-infringement of third-party intellectual property rights. As deployment of our technology increases, and more companies enter our markets, the likelihood of a third party lawsuit resulting from these provisions increases. If an infringement arose in a context governed by such a contract, we may have to refund to our customer amounts already paid to us or pay significant damages, or we may be sued by the party whose intellectual property has allegedly been infringed upon.

(14) If our revenue models and pricing structures relating to products and services that are under development do not gain market acceptance, the products and services may fail to attract or retain customers and we may not be able to generate new revenue or sustain existing revenue.

Some of our business involves embedding digital watermarks in traditional and digital media, including consumer product packaging and related marketing materials, secure documents, audio, video and imagery, and licensing our intellectual property. Our revenues result from a combination of development, consulting, subscription and license fees from a variety of media identification and management applications. We have not fully developed our revenue models for some applications related to Digimarc Discover and Discover Barcode. Because some of our products and services are not yet well-established in the marketplace, and because some of these products and services will not directly displace existing solutions, we cannot be certain that the pricing structure for these products and services will gain market acceptance or be sustainable over time or that the marketing for these products and services will be effective.

(15) If we are unable to respond to regulatory or industry standards effectively, or if we are unable to develop and integrate new technologies effectively, our growth and the development of our products and services could be delayed or limited.

Our future success will depend in part on our ability to enhance and improve the responsiveness, functionality and features of our products and services, and those of our business partners, in accordance with regulatory or industry standards. Our ability to remain competitive will depend in part on our ability to influence and respond to emerging industry and governmental standards in a timely and cost-effective manner. If we are unable to influence these or other standards or respond to these standards effectively, our growth and the development of various products and services could be delayed or limited.

Our market is characterized by new and evolving technologies. The success of our business will depend on our ability to develop and integrate new technologies effectively and address the increasingly sophisticated technological needs of our customers in a timely and cost-effective manner. Our ability to remain competitive will depend in part on our ability to:

We do not assure you that we will be successful in responding to these technological and industry challenges in a timely and cost-effective manner. If we are unable to develop or integrate new technologies effectively or respond to these changing needs, our margins could decrease, and our release of new products and services and the deployment of our technology could be adversely affected.

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(16) We may need to retain additional employees or contract labor in the future in order to take advantage of new business opportunities arising from increased demand, which could increase costs and impede our ability to achieve or sustain profitability in the short term.

We have staffed our company with the intent of accelerating our product development and sales growth initiatives while also focusing on achieving and sustaining profitability. Our current staffing levels could affect our ability to respond to increased demand for our services. In addition, to meet any increased demand and take advantage of new business opportunities in the future, we may need to increase our workforce through additional employees or contract labor. Although we believe that increasing our workforce would potentially support anticipated growth and profitability, it would increase our costs. If we experience such an increase in costs, we may not succeed in achieving or sustaining profitability in the short term.

(17) The terms and conditions of our contracts could subject us to damages, losses and other expenses if we fail to meet delivery and other performance requirements.

Our service contracts typically include provisions imposing:

To the extent these provisions involve performance over extended periods of time, risks of noncompliance may increase. From time to time we have experienced delays in system implementation, timely acceptance of programs, concerns regarding program performance and other contractual disputes. If we fail to meet contractual performance requirements as promised, or to successfully resolve customer disputes, we could incur liability for damages, as well as increased costs, lower margins, or compensatory obligations in addition to other losses, such as harm to our reputation. Any unexpected increases in costs to meet our contractual obligations or any other requirements necessary to address claims and damages with regard to our customer contracts could have a material adverse effect on our business and financial results.

(18) Products deploying our technology could have unknown defects or errors, which may give rise to claims against us, divert application of our resources from other purposes or increase our project implementation and support costs.

Products and services as complex as those we offer or develop may contain undetected defects or errors. Furthermore, we often provide complex implementation, integration, customization, consulting and other technical services in connection with the implementation and ongoing maintenance of our products. Despite testing, defects or errors in our products and services may occur, which could result in delays in the development and implementation of products and systems, inability to meet customer requirements or expectations in a timely manner, loss of revenue or market share, increased implementation and support costs, failure to achieve market acceptance, diversion of development resources, injury to our reputation, increased insurance costs, increased service and warranty costs and warranty or breach of contract claims. Although we attempt to reduce the risk of losses resulting from warranty or breach of contract claims through warranty disclaimers and liability limitation clauses in our sales agreements when we can, these contractual provisions are sometimes limited and may not be enforceable in every instance. If a court refuses to enforce the liability limiting provisions of our contracts for any reason, or if liabilities arise that were not contractually limited or adequately covered by insurance, the expense associated with defending these actions or paying the resultant claims could be significant.

(19) The security systems used in our product and service offerings may be circumvented or sabotaged by third parties, which could result in the disclosure of sensitive information or private personal information or cause other business interruptions that could damage our reputation and disrupt our business.

Our business relies on computers and other information technologies, both internal and at customer locations. The protective measures that we use may not prevent all security breaches, and failure to prevent security breaches may disrupt our business, damage our reputation, and expose us to litigation and liability. A party who is able to circumvent security measures could misappropriate sensitive or proprietary information or materials or cause interruptions or otherwise damage our products, services and reputation, and the property of our customers. If unintended parties obtain sensitive data and information, or create bugs or viruses or otherwise sabotage the functionality of our systems, we may receive negative publicity, incur liability to our customers or lose the confidence of our customers, any of which may cause the termination or modification of our contracts. Further, our insurance coverage may be insufficient to cover losses and liabilities that may result from these events.

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In addition, we may be required to expend significant capital and other resources to protect ourselves against the threat of security breaches or to alleviate problems caused by these breaches. Any protection or remedial measures may not be available at a reasonable price or at all, or may not be entirely effective if commenced.

(20) We may experience outages and disruptions of our infrastructure that may harm our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.

We may be subject to outages or disruptions of our infrastructure, including information technology system failures and network disruptions. Substantially all of our computer and communications hardware is located at a single facility. System redundancy may be ineffective or inadequate, and our disaster recovery planning may not be sufficient for all eventualities.

If a natural disaster, cyber incident, weather event, power disruption, telecommunications failure, act of terrorism or other event occurred that prevented us from using all or a significant portion of our facility and/or damaged critical infrastructure, it could harm our ability to conduct normal business operations.

(21) We are periodically involved in the ordinary course of business in litigation, and an adverse resolution of such litigation may adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.

From time to time, in our normal course of business, we are a party to various legal claims, actions and complaints. For example, as part of our patent licensing program, we may bring claims or counterclaims of patent infringement to enforce our patent rights. Given the uncertain nature of litigation, we are not able to estimate the amount or range of gain or loss that could result from an outcome of litigation. Litigation can be expensive, lengthy, and disruptive to normal business operations. The results of complex legal proceedings are often uncertain and difficult to predict. We could incur costs in excess of any established accruals and, to the extent available, excess liability insurance. An unfavorable outcome in any legal proceedings could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.

(22) Consolidation of consumer product companies and/or retailers or brands, or other concentration of market share among a few consumer products companies and/or retailers or brands, may reduce the number of potential customers for our technology and put pressure on our pricing structure.

The brands, consumer products and retailer markets in some geographic regions are dominated by a few large companies. These companies have in the past increased their market share and may continue to do so in the future by expanding through acquisitions. In the future, if significant acquisitions were to occur there may be fewer potential customers for our technology. Additionally, larger companies have strengthened purchasing power, which could force a decline in our pricing structure and decrease the margins we can realize.

RISKS RELATED TO OUR CAPITAL STOCK

(23) Our common stock price may be volatile, and you could lose all or part of your investment in shares of our common stock.

The price of shares of our common stock may fluctuate as a result of changes in our operating performance or prospects and other factors. Some specific factors that may have a significant effect on the price of shares of our common stock include:

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(24) Our common stock price may increase or decrease on material news or developments.

As a thinly-traded microcap company, volatility in the equity securities market may disproportionately cause swings in our stock price, upward and downward, on positive and negative developments. We believe that computerized trading exacerbates fluctuations in our stock price.

(25) Our corporate governance documents, our rights agreement and Oregon law may delay or prevent an acquisition of us that shareholders may consider favorable, which could decrease the value of your shares.

Our articles of incorporation and bylaws and Oregon law contain provisions that could make it more difficult for a third party to acquire us without the consent of our Board of Directors. These provisions include supermajority voting requirements for shareholders to amend our organizational documents and limitations on actions by our shareholders by written consent. In addition, our Board of Directors has the right to issue preferred stock without shareholder approval, which could be used to dilute the stock ownership of a potential hostile acquirer. In July 2008, our Board of Directors adopted a rights agreement pursuant to which one one-hundredth (1/100) of a preferred stock purchase right will be issued for each outstanding share of our common stock. In general terms, our rights agreement works by imposing a significant penalty upon any person or group that acquires 15% or more of our outstanding common stock without the approval of our Board of Directors. Oregon law also restricts the ability to vote shares of stock acquired in a transaction that causes the acquiring person to control at least one-fifth, one-third or one-half of the votes entitled to be cast in the election of directors (a “control share acquisition”). Shares acquired in a control share acquisition have no voting rights except as authorized by a vote of the shareholders. Although we believe these provisions protect our shareholders from coercive or otherwise unfair takeover tactics and thereby provide for an opportunity to receive a higher bid by requiring potential acquirers to negotiate with our Board of Directors, these provisions apply even if the offer may be considered beneficial by some shareholders.

None.

We lease our principal administrative, marketing, research, and intellectual property development facility, which is approximately 47,000 square feet in size and located in Beaverton, Oregon. In July 2015, we entered into an amendment with the landlord of our corporate offices in Beaverton, Oregon to extend the lease term through March 2024 for rent payments totaling $5.5 million, payable in monthly installments.

In February 2015, we entered into a new facilities lease agreement for a facility in San Mateo, California, which is approximately 5,400 square feet in size, with a lease term through March 2020 for rent payments totaling $1.0 million, payable in monthly installments. We lease this facility for sales, marketing and engineering staff in support of our Guardian products and services.

We believe that our existing facilities are suitable and adequate for our current and foreseeable future needs. See Note 7 of our Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements for further lease related disclosures.

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We are subject from time to time to other legal proceedings and claims arising in the ordinary course of business. At this time, we do not believe that the resolution of any such matters will have a material adverse effect on our financial position, results of operations or cash flows.

Not applicable.

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PART II

Our common stock began trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market LLC in October 2008 under the symbol “DMRC.” The closing price of our common stock on the Nasdaq Global Market was $31.15 on February 16, 2018. The following table lists the high and low sales prices of our common stock for the periods indicated, as reported by the Nasdaq Global Market.

At February 16, 2018, we had 275 shareholders of record of our common stock, as shown in the records of our transfer agent. Since many holders hold shares in “street name,” we believe that there is a significantly larger number of beneficial owners of our common stock than the number of record holders.

In August 2016, we sold 1,233,333 shares of our common stock in an underwritten public offering, plus an additional 185,000 shares in full exercise of the underwriters’ option to purchase additional shares of common stock, at the price to the public of $30.00 per share. We received $39,953 of cash proceeds, net of discount of $2,447 and underwriter fees of $150, from the offering, and paid $253 in stock issuance costs for legal and accounting fees.

In June 2017, we sold 500,000 shares of our common stock in a registered direct offering to a certain investor at a price of $35.55 per share. The offering was made without an underwriter or placement agent. We received $17,775 of cash proceeds from the offering, and paid $77 in stock issuance costs.

In November 2017, we sold 331,034 shares of our common stock in a registered direct offering to a certain investor at a price of $36.25 per share. The offering was made without an underwriter or placement agent. We received $12,000 of cash proceeds from the offering, and paid $21 in stock issuance costs.

We withhold (repurchase) shares of common stock in connection with the vesting of restricted shares to satisfy required tax withholding obligations.

The following table sets forth information regarding purchases of our equity securities during the three-month period ended December 31, 2017:

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STOCK PERFORMANCE GRAPH

The following graph compares the performance of our common stock with the performance of (i) the Nasdaq U.S. Index and (ii) a peer group selected by our Compensation Committee. The comparison assumes $100 was invested in our common stock on December 31, 2012 and in each of the two indices at the closing price on that date, and assumes reinvestment of any dividends. We believe that the companies in the peer group are comparable to us in terms of line-of-business, market capitalization, revenue, and number of employees, and therefore, comprise an appropriate peer group for purposes of comparing stock performance. The comparisons in the graph are based on historical data and are not indicative of, nor intended to forecast, future performance of our common stock.

Companies included in the Peer Group index of the stock performance graph are as follows:

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The selected financial data set forth below should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and the notes to the consolidated financial statements and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” which are included elsewhere in this report.

The following tables set forth our selected financial information as of and for each of the years in the five-year period ended December 31, 2017, which has been derived from audited financial statements as of December 31, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013 and for the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013.

Statement of Operations Data

Balance Sheet Data

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The following Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations contains forward-looking statements relating to future events or the future financial performance of Digimarc, which involve risks and uncertainties. Our actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements. Please see the discussion regarding forward-looking statements included at the end of this discussion, under the caption “Forward-Looking Statements,” and Item 1A, “Risk Factors” for a discussion of some of the uncertainties, risks and assumptions associated with these statements.

The following discussion should be read in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements and the related notes and other financial information appearing elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

All dollar amounts are in thousands except per share amounts or unless otherwise noted. The percentages within the following tables included in this section may not sum to 100% due to rounding.

Overview

Digimarc Corporation enables governments, banks and businesses around the world to automatically and reliably identify and interact with virtually any media. We have pioneered the Digimarc® Intuitive Computing Platform (ICP^TM), a comprehensive set of technologies for identifying, discovering and interacting with digitally-enhanced media. The platform includes Digimarc Barcode, a proprietary method for imperceptibly enhancing packaging, print, images, thermal labels, audio and other objects with data that is detected by enabled devices, such as smart phones, computers, barcode scanners and machine-vision equipment. Digimarc Discover software enables an ecosystem of connected devices to easily identify content or materials and deliver information.

Our growth strategy encompasses both our government and commercial businesses. We plan to continue investing in research and development and sales and marketing to develop and market our products, including Digimarc Discover, Digimarc Barcode and Guardian, and to continue to expand our intellectual property portfolio.

To protect our significant efforts in creating our technology, we have implemented an extensive intellectual property protection program that relies on a combination of patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret laws, and nondisclosure agreements and other contracts. As a result, we believe we have one of the world’s most extensive patent portfolios in digital watermarking and related fields, with over 1,100 U.S. and foreign patents granted and applications pending as of December 31, 2017. We continue to develop and broaden our portfolio of patented technology in the fields of media identification and management technology and related applications and systems. We devote significant resources to developing and protecting our inventions and continuously seek to identify and evaluate potential licensees for our patents.

Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates

The preparation of financial statements in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the U.S. (“U.S. GAAP”) requires us to make estimates and judgments that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, revenue and expenses, and related disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities. On an on-going basis, we evaluate our estimates, including those related to bad debts, contingencies, goodwill, income taxes, intangible assets, marketable securities, property and equipment and revenue recognition. We base our estimates on historical experience and on other assumptions we believe to be reasonable in the circumstances. Actual results may differ from these estimates under different assumptions or conditions.

Some of our accounting policies require higher degrees of judgment than others in their application. We believe the following critical accounting policies affect our more significant judgments and estimates used in the preparation of our consolidated financial statements.

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Revenue recognition: We account for customer arrangements that encompass multiple deliverables, such as patent licenses, professional services, software licenses, and maintenance and support fees, under ASC 605-25 “Multiple-Element Arrangements.” For arrangements that include multiple deliverables, we identify and divide the deliverables into separate units of accounting at inception if certain criteria are met. We apply ASC 985 to software deliverables when relevant. The consideration for the arrangements under ASC 605-25 is allocated to the separate units of accounting using the relative selling price method.

The relative selling price method allocates the consideration based on our specific assumptions rather than assumptions of a marketplace participant, and allocates any discount in the arrangement proportionally to each deliverable on the basis of each deliverable’s selling price.

Applicable revenue recognition criteria are considered separately for each separate unit of accounting as follows:

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Results of Operations—the Years Ended December 31, 2017 and December 31, 2016

The following tables present our consolidated statements of operations data for the periods indicated.

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Summary

Total revenue increased $3.4 million or 16% to $25.2 million, primarily as the result of higher license revenue driven by a one-time $3.5 million license fee from an existing licensee.

Total operating expenses increased $8.0 million or 23% to $43.2 million, reflecting higher investment in sales, marketing and engineering, primarily additional headcount, as we continue to address important opportunities in market development and delivery for Digimarc Discover and Digimarc Barcode.

Revenue

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Service. Service revenue consists primarily of software development and consulting services. The majority of service revenue arrangements are structured as time and materials consulting agreements. Most of our service revenue is derived from contracts with the Central Banks and government agency contractors. The agreements range from several months to several years in length, and our longer term contracts are subject to work plans that are reviewed and agreed upon at least annually. These contracts generally provide for billing hours worked at predetermined rates and, to a lesser extent, reimbursement for third party costs and services. Increases or decreases in the services provided under these contracts are generally subject to both volume and price changes. The volume of work is generally negotiated at least annually and can be modified as the customer’s needs change. We also have provisions in our longer term contracts that allow for specific hourly rate price increases on an annual basis to account for cost of living variables. Contracts with government agency contractors are generally shorter term in nature, less linear in billings and less predictable than our longer term contracts because the contracts with government agency contractors are subject to government budgets and funding.

The increase in service revenue was primarily due to higher billable rates under our agreement with the Central Banks.

Subscription. Subscription revenue includes Digimarc Discover, Digimarc Barcode and Guardian products and services, and is generally recurring in nature, paid in advance and recognized over the term of the subscription.

The decrease in subscription revenue was primarily due to lower Guardian revenue, partially offset by higher Digimarc Barcode revenue.

License. License revenue originates primarily from licensing our intellectual property where we receive license fees and/or royalties as our income stream.

The increase in license revenue was primarily due to the recognition of a one-time $3.5 million license fee from an existing licensee. In exchange for the upfront license fee, we waived any future royalty obligations from this licensee in one of the licensed fields of use. The license fee was paid in two equal installments of $1.75 million in October 2017 and January 2018.

Revenue by geography

The increase in domestic revenue was primarily due to Digimarc Barcode revenue from domestic customers and higher license revenue from a domestic licensee, partially offset by lower Guardian revenue from domestic customers.

The increase in international revenue was primarily due to the recognition of a one-time $3.5 million license fee from an existing international licensee and higher service revenue from the Central Banks, partially offset by lower Guardian revenue from international customers.

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Cost of revenue

Service. Cost of service revenue primarily includes costs that are allocated from research, development and engineering, sales and marketing and intellectual property that relate directly to performing services under our customer contracts and direct costs of program delivery. Costs include:

Subscription. Cost of subscription revenue primarily includes:

License. Cost of license revenue primarily includes:

Gross profit

The increase in total gross profit was primarily due to the recognition of a one-time $3.5 million license fee from an existing licensee.

The increase in license gross profit as a percentage of license revenue was due to the recognition of a one-time $3.5 million license fee from an existing licensee.

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Operating expenses

We allocate certain costs of research, development and engineering, sales and marketing, and intellectual property to cost of revenue when they relate directly to our customer contracts. We record all remaining, or “residual,” costs as sales and marketing, research, development and engineering, general and administrative, and intellectual property expenses.

Sales and marketing

Sales and marketing expenses consist primarily of:

The increase in sales and marketing expenses was due primarily to:

Research, development and engineering

Research, development and engineering expenses arise primarily from three areas that support our business model:

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Research, development and engineering expenses consist primarily of:

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The increase in research, development and engineering expenses was due primarily to:

General and administrative

We incur general and administrative costs in the functional areas of finance, legal, human resources, executive and board of directors. Costs for facilities and information technology are also managed as part of the general and administrative processes and are allocated to this area as well as each of the areas in cost of revenue, sales and marketing, research, development and engineering and intellectual property.

General and administrative expenses consist primarily of:

The increase in general and administrative expenses was due primarily to:

Intellectual property

We incur intellectual property expenses that arise primarily from costs associated with documenting, applying for, and maintaining domestic and international patents and trademarks.

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Gross expenditures for intellectual property costs, before reflecting the effect of capitalized patent costs, primarily consist of:

Intellectual property expenses can vary from period to period based on the level of capitalized patent activity.

The decrease in intellectual property expenses was due primarily to lower write-offs of abandoned patent costs of $0.2 million.

Stock-based compensation

The increase in stock-based compensation expense was due primarily to increased headcount and the amount and timing of stock awards for existing personnel. We anticipate incurring an additional $13,669 in stock-based compensation expense through December 2021 for unvested restricted stock awards as of December 31, 2017.

Other income, net

The increase in other income, net was primarily due to higher interest income as a result of higher cash and investment balances, higher interest rates on cash and investments, and changes in foreign currency.

Provision for income taxes

The provision for income taxes reflects current taxes, deferred taxes and withholding taxes in certain foreign jurisdictions.

For the year ended December 31, 2017, our effective tax rate was 1% reflecting the recognition of alternative minimum tax (“AMT”) credit carryforwards and a full valuation allowance recorded against our deferred tax assets. The valuation allowance against deferred tax assets as of December 31, 2017 was $32.3 million, an increase of $7.4 million from $24.9 million as of December 31, 2016. We continually assess the applicability of a valuation allowance against our deferred tax assets. Based upon the positive and negative evidence available as of December 31, 2017, and largely due to the cumulative loss incurred by us over the preceding three years, which is considered a significant piece of negative evidence when assessing the realizability of deferred tax assets, a full valuation allowance is recorded against our deferred tax assets. We will not record tax benefits on any future losses

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until its determined that those tax benefits will be realized. All future reversals of the valuation allowance would result in a tax benefit in the period recognized.

For the year ended December 31, 2016, our effective tax rate was 0% reflecting a full valuation allowance recorded against our deferred tax assets.  The valuation allowance against deferred tax assets as of December 31, 2016 was $24.9 million, an increase of $9.5 million from $15.4 million as of December 31, 2015.

The United States (“U.S.”) enacted tax reform legislation on December 22, 2017 commonly known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (“the Act”), resulting in significant modifications to existing U.S. tax law.  Accounting for the income tax effects of the Act has been completed and included in our financial statements as of December 31, 2017. As a result of the Act, we recorded a one-time tax provision and corresponding reduction to valuation allowance of $10,529, which consisted primarily of the remeasurement of deferred tax assets and liabilities from a tax rate of 35% to a tax rate of 21%. The future impact of the Act is not expected to have a material effect on our financial results and cash flows in the foreseeable future because we have a full valuation allowance recorded against our deferred tax assets.

Results of Operations—the Years Ended December 31, 2016 and December 31, 2015

The following tables present our consolidated statements of operations data for the periods indicated.