PatentTerm Online, LLC Privacy Policy

At PatentTerm Online, LLC, your privacy is extremely important to us and was carefully considered in our service design. We are totally committed to maintaining the confidentiality and security of your information.

PatentTerm Online was conceived and designed by attorneys. Thus, we understand the critical importance of confidentiality. PatentTerm Online’s privacy policy addresses the following:

     1. Summary 
     2. Information Collection and Use 
     3. Updating Your Information 
     4. Security of Your Information 
     5. Notification of Changes

If at any time you have questions or concerns about your privacy, or believe that PatentTerm Online is not abiding by its posted policy, please contact us immediately via e-mail to Support@PatentTerm.com.

1. Summary

PatentTerm Online agrees to keep confidential and never sell, share, rent, or otherwise disclose your personally-identifiable information except as necessary to provide our service as described herein. As detailed below, to secure this information, all private information you exchange with our servers is communicated via an encrypted Internet connection. This information cannot be accessed by other users and is password-protected in your individual user account. Our database servers are located in a highly secure data center with cameras, strict access controls, numerous power continuity features, and an advanced fire suppression system.

2. Information Collection and Use

Information Entered by You

PatentTerm Online is the sole owner of the information collected on this site. We will not sell, share, rent, or otherwise disclose this information to others except as required to offer our service. PatentTerm Online collects personal information from our users at several different points on our web site, but primarily during new account setup, new application creation, the input of prosecution history and term rules for an application, and during term analysis calculations. Although non-registered users may browse this site to learn about PatentTerm Online, in order to use the calculator service offered by PatentTerm Online, a user must first complete the New Account form, or the user may be assigned an account by PatentTerm Online. During the New Account setup process the user is required to give their background information (such as name, phone number, and e-mail address). Additionally, to analyze an application, a user must provide pertinent application details as well as create and edit term rule assignments. During the New Application setup process, a user may also be required to provide credit card information for payment. Information provided by the user is required in order to contact the user about the services on our site, to provide our calculator service, and for archival and billing purposes.

Communications

We send all new users who have created a new account online, as well as users who change their e-mail address, an e-mail so that we can check that a valid e-mail address has been provided. Account holders will occasionally receive communications from us about PatentTerm Online including but not limited to service announcements, activity inquiries, and updates. We welcome e-mail communications and will respond as necessary in a timely manner.

Cookies

A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user’s computer containing information about the user. PatentTerm Online uses two types of cookies, session cookies and permanent cookies.

Session cookies allow our web servers to temporarily maintain state information concerning your interactions with our web site. Once you close your browser, or after a period of inactivity, session cookies are automatically deleted from your computer. Since state information is necessary for us to provide our service, it is a requirement to have session cookies turned on in your browser to access PatentTerm Online.

Use of permanent cookies is optional, and a permanent cookie will only be set on your computer if you check Remember Me on the Logon page, New Account page, or Edit My Account page. Permanent cookies allow PatentTerm Online to recognize your computer when you return to our web site between sessions. This lets us customize certain pages, automatically provide partial logon information for faster access, and compile better visitor statistics. After a long period of time without visiting our site, our permanent cookies will automatically be deleted from your computer. For security reasons, sensitive password information is never stored in cookies.

Server Log Files

We use IP addresses and other visitor data to analyze trends, administer the site, track user movement, track and diagnose security issues, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use in continually improving the site. Such log files do not contain information about individual patent applications.

Sharing

The only user data we may publicly share is aggregated demographic information with our partners and for marketing purposes. This is not linked to any personal information that can identify any individual person, firm, or company. For promotional purposes, we may ask for your permission to publish (in an advertisement or on our site) that your firm or company is a user of PatentTerm Online, but we will not do so without your consent.

We use an outside credit card processing company to bill users for our services and may use other service providers to perform certain business functions. These companies do not retain, share, store, or use personally-identifiable information for any secondary purposes.

In the event PatentTerm Online is ever subjected to a subpeona or is involved in a legal proceeding, PatentTerm Online may disclose confidential information if required to (i) do so by law, or in the good faith belief that such disclosure is reasonably necessary to comply with legal process; (ii) respond to any legal claims by you; or (iii) enforce the User Agreement. Prior to any disclosure, however, PatentTerm Online will provide prompt written notification to you, so that you have the opportunity to seek intervention in the legal matter. Additionally, where unlawful activity is suspected, PatentTerm Online may disclose confidential information as specified in the User Agreement.

Third Party Links

PatentTerm Online contains links to other sites such as the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Such outside sites never appear within frames and typically are displayed within a separate window when clicked. Thus, it should be clear when you leave our site. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects personally-identifiable information. This privacy statement applies only to information collected by PatentTerm Online.

3. Correction/Updating Account Information

If a user’s personally-identifiable information changes (such as your e-mail address), we will provide a way to correct, update, or remove that user’s incorrect personal data provided to us (except for permanent billing records and archival calculation reports). This can be done over the web via the My Account page or by a written and verified request.

4. Security of Your Information

PatentTerm Online takes numerous precautions to protect our users' information. When users submit information via the web site, the information is protected both online and offline. When we ask users to enter information (such as a credit card number), that information is encrypted and is protected using industry standard SSL encryption technology. While on a secure page, such as your account information, a lock icon is displayed in the web browser. All pages with private data are secure pages.

While we use SSL encryption to protect sensitive information online, we also take many precautions to protect user information offline. All of our user information, not just the sensitive information mentioned above, is restricted in our offices. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, an accounting manager or a customer service representative) are granted access to personally-identifiable information. Our employees must use password-protected screen-savers when they leave their desk. When they return, they must re-enter their password to re-gain access to information. Finally, the database servers that we store personally-identifiable information on are kept in a highly secure data center.

If you have any questions about the security of PatentTerm Online, you can send e-mail to Support@PatentTerm.com.

5. Notification of Changes

If we need to update our privacy policy, we will post those updates on this page so our users are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. We will always use information in accordance with the privacy policy under which the information was collected. In the unlikely event we seek to use personally-identifiable information in a manner less restrictive than that stated at the time it was collected, we will first notify users via e-mail, and users will have a choice as to whether or not we use their information in this different manner.

Questions

If you have any questions about our privacy policy, please contact us at Support@PatentTerm.com.

Version 2.0, Effective June 18, 2007