employees and contractors. As a developer of complex software systems, third parties may claim that portions of our systems violate their intellectual property rights. The ability to develop and use our software and software systems requires knowledge and professional experience that we believe is unique to us and would be very difficult for others to independently obtain. However, our competitors may independently develop technologies that are substantially equivalent or superior to ours. We expect that software developers will increasingly be subject to infringement claims as the number of products and competitors providing software and services to the communications industry increases and overlaps occur. In addition, patent infringement claims are increasingly being asserted by patent holding companies, which do not use the technology subject to their patents, and whose sole business is to enforce patents against companies, such as us, for monetary gain. Any claim of infringement by a third party could cause us to incur substantial costs defending against the claim and could distract our management from our business. Furthermore, a party making such a claim, if successful, could secure a judgment that requires us to pay substantial damages. A judgment could also include an injunction or other court order that could prevent us from selling our products or offering our services, or prevent a customer from continuing to use our products. We support service providers and media companies with respect to digital content services, which could subject us to claims related to such services. Our entry into the digital content services market has also subjected us to possible claims of infringement of the ownership rights to media content, as well as to direct legal claims from retail consumers arising from the delivery of such services. If anyone asserts a claim against us relating to proprietary technology or information, we might seek to license their intellectual property. We might not, however, be able to obtain a license on commercially reasonable terms or on any terms. In addition, any efforts to develop non-infringing technology could be unsuccessful. Our failure to obtain the necessary licenses or other rights or to develop non-infringing technology could prevent us from selling our products and could therefore seriously harm our business. Design defects or software errors may cause delays in product introductions and project implementations and damage customer satisfaction, and may have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition. Our software products are highly complex and may, from time to time, contain design defects or software errors that may be difficult to detect and correct. Because our products are generally used by our customers to perform critical business functions, design defects, software errors, misuse of our products, incorrect data from external sources or other potential problems within or outside of our control may arise during implementation or from the use of our products, and may result in financial or other damages to our customers, for which we may be held responsible. Although we have license agreements with our customers that contain provisions designed to limit our exposure to potential claims and liabilities arising from customer problems, these provisions may not effectively protect us against such claims in all cases and in all jurisdictions. In addition, as a result of business and other considerations, we may undertake to compensate our customers for damages caused to them arising from the use of our products, even if our liability is limited by a license or other agreement. Claims and liabilities arising from customer problems could also damage our reputation, adversely affecting our business, results of operations and financial condition and the ability to obtain “Errors and Omissions” insurance. Our systems are an integral part of our customers’ business operations. The continued and uninterrupted performance of these systems by our customers is critical to our success. Customers may become dissatisfied by any system failure that interrupts our ability to provide services to them. Sustained or repeated system failures would reduce the attractiveness of our services significantly and could result in decreased demand for our products and services. Our ability to serve our customers depends on our ability to protect our computer systems against damage from fire, power loss, water damage, telecommunications failures, earthquake, terrorism attack, vandalism and similar unexpected adverse events. Despite our efforts to implement network security measures, our systems are 13 System disruptions and failures or security and privacy breaches may result in customer dissatisfaction, customer loss or both, which could materially and adversely affect our reputation and business. Product defects or software errors could adversely affect our business.