14. Commitments and Contingencies

Litigation. From time to time, the Company may become involved in various legal actions involving its operations, products and technologies, including intellectual property and employment disputes. The outcomes of these legal actions are not within the Company’s complete control and may not be known for prolonged periods of time. In some actions, the claimants seek damages as well as other relief, including injunctions barring the sale of products that are the subject of the lawsuit, which if granted, could require significant expenditures or result in lost revenue. The Company records a liability in the condensed consolidated financial statements for these actions when a loss is known or considered probable and the amount can be reasonably estimated. If the reasonable estimate of a known or probable loss is a range, and no amount within the range is a better estimate, the minimum amount of the range is accrued. If a loss is possible but not known or probable, and can be reasonably estimated, the estimated loss or range of loss is disclosed. In most cases, significant judgment is required to estimate the amount and timing of a loss to be recorded.

On January 17, 2018, we entered into a settlement agreement fully resolving the previously disclosed litigation involving Merit Medical Systems, Inc. (“Merit”) and NorMedix. The Company believes that the settlement will not have a material impact on its business, financial condition or results of operations.

InnoCore Technologies BV. In March 2006, the Company entered into a license agreement whereby Surmodics obtained an exclusive license to a drug delivery coating for licensed products within the vascular field which included peripheral, coronary and neurovascular biodurable stent products. The license requires an annual minimum payment of 200,000 euros (equivalent to $240,000 using a euro to US dollar exchange rate of $1.1979 to the Euro as of December 31, 2017) until the last patent expires which is currently estimated to be September 2027. The total minimum future payments associated with this license are approximately $2.4 million. The license is currently utilized by one of the Company’s drug delivery customers.

Operating Leases. The Company leases certain facilities under noncancelable operating lease agreements. Rent expense for the three months ended December 31, 2017 and 2016 was $0.1 million for each period. In November 2017, the Company executed a lease for a 36,000 square feet facility in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. This facility will consolidate substantially all of our whole products solutions research and development operations into one location. Contractual obligations under the lease agreement total $4.0 million over the ten-year lease term, which is expected to commence in May 2018. In connection with this lease, the Company deposited $0.4 million into a restricted cash account, to be held until the leased facility is occupied, at which point the cash will be returned to the Company. Annual commitments pursuant to operating lease agreements in place as of December 31, 2017 for the remainder of fiscal 2018 and each of the next five fiscal years is as follows (in thousands):

Remainder of 2018	$	280
2019		441
2020		450
2021		396
2022		391
2023		399
Thereafter		1,933
Total minimum lease payments	$	4,290