Symantec 2010 Annual Report Download - page 87

Storage and Server Management
The markets for storage and backup are intensely competitive. Our primary competitors are CA, Inc.,
CommVault Systems, Inc., EMC, Hewlett-Packard Company (“HP”), IBM Corp. (“IBM”), Microsoft, Sun
Microsystems, Inc. (acquired by Oracle Corporation), and VMware, Inc.
Services
We believe that the principal competitive factors for our services segment include technical capability,
customer responsiveness, and our ability to hire and retain talented and experienced services personnel. Our
primary competitors in the services segment are EMC, HP, IBM, and regional specialized consulting firms. In the
managed security services business, our primary competitors are IBM, and SecureWorks, Inc.
Intellectual Property
Protective Measures
We regard some of the features of our internal operations, software, and documentation as proprietary and rely
on copyright, patent, trademark and trade secret laws, confidentiality procedures, contractual arrangements, and
other measures to protect our proprietary information. Our intellectual property is an important and valuable asset
that enables us to gain recognition for our products, services, and technology and enhance our competitive position.
As part of our confidentiality procedures, we generally enter into non-disclosure agreements with our
employees, distributors, and corporate partners, and we enter into license agreements with respect to our software,
documentation, and other proprietary information. These license agreements are generally non-transferable and
have a perpetual term. We also educate our employees on trade secret protection and employ measures to protect our
facilities, equipment, and networks.
Trademarks, Patents, Copyrights, and Licenses
Symantec and the Symantec logo are trademarks or registered trademarks in the U.S. and other countries. In
addition to Symantec and the Symantec logo, we have used, registered, and/or applied to register other specific
trademarks and service marks to help distinguish our products, technologies, and services from those of our
competitors in the U.S. and foreign countries and jurisdictions. We enforce our trademark, service mark, and trade
name rights in the U.S. and abroad. The duration of our trademark registrations varies from country to country, and
in the U.S. we generally are able to maintain our trademark rights and renew any trademark registrations for as long
as the trademarks are in use.
We have a number of U.S. and foreign issued patents and pending patent applications, including patents and
rights to patent applications acquired through strategic transactions, which relate to various aspects of our products
and technology. The duration of our patents is determined by the laws of the country of issuance and for the U.S. is
typically 17 years from the date of issuance of the patent or 20 years from the date of filing of the patent application
resulting in the patent, which we believe is adequate relative to the expected lives of our products.
Our products are protected under U.S. and international copyright laws and laws related to the protection of
intellectual property and proprietary information. We take measures to label such products with the appropriate
proprietary rights notices, and we actively enforce such rights in the U.S. and abroad. However, these measures may
not provide sufficient protection, and our intellectual property rights may be challenged. In addition, we license
some intellectual property from third parties for use in our products, and generally must rely on the third party to
protect the licensed intellectual property rights. While we believe that our ability to maintain and protect our
intellectual property rights is important to our success, we also believe that our business as a whole is not materially
dependent on any particular patent, trademark, license, or other intellectual property right.
Seasonality
As is typical for many large software companies, our business is seasonal. Software license and maintenance
orders are generally higher in our third and fourth fiscal quarters and lower in our first and second fiscal quarters. A
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