PatSnap Terms of Service

Effective date: 18th March, 2025

Last updated: 18th March, 2025

These Individual Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of PatSnap's Eureka product experience offered to individual users, including any free trials, freemium access, or paid individual subscriptions (the "Services"). By creating an account, accessing or using the Services, you agree to these Terms.

If you do not agree, do not use the Services.

1. Who we are

The Services are provided by PatSnap UK Limited ("PatSnap", "we", "us", "our").

• Contact: productsupport@patsnap.com
• Address: Building 3 Chiswick Business Park, 566 Chiswick High Road, London, England, W4 5YA

2. Eligibility and intended use

1. Age. You must be at least 18 years old to use the Services.
2. The Services are intended for individual users. If you are using the Services on behalf of a company or for commercial/organisational purposes, different terms may apply, and you may not receive governance controls such as SSO, admin tools, API access, or organisation-wide oversight in the individual plan.
3. If your email domain is associated with an existing PatSnap enterprise/customer agreement, you may not be able to register for the individual Services, and duplicate emails between individual and enterprise accounts are not permitted.
4. The Services are not available for individuals in locations where sanctions are applicable.
5. We may refuse or limit access including suspected competitors, abuse, or risk signals where lawful to do so.

3. Accounts, authentication, and security

1. You may be able to sign up using email and/or third-party sign-in methods (e.g., Google/social login).
2. You must not create multiple accounts to bypass usage limits, free trials, credits, or other restrictions.
3. You must not share your account credentials or allow others to access your account. You are responsible for all activity under your account.
4. We use technical controls (including WAF-level rate limiting and IP-based restrictions) and monitoring to detect abuse. You agree that we may take protective actions (including throttling, blocking, suspending, or terminating access) if we reasonably suspect abuse, fraud, automated activity, scraping, credential sharing, or circumvention (including via VPNs/proxies).
5. You must promptly notify us if you suspect unauthorized access to your account.

API access, keys, and usage limits

1. If you choose any API product, you must always keep the API keys secure and confidential and must not share them, hardcode them in client-side applications, or expose them in public code repositories or other insecure environments.
2. You are responsible for all use of your API keys, including all requests, usage, and charges, whether or not authorized by you, and you must not exceed any applicable API limits, rate limits, quotas, or usage restrictions.
3. If you know or suspect that an API key has been compromised, you must immediately revoke or rotate it and notify us. We may suspend, disable, or replace any API key if we suspect misuse or a security risk.
4. If you transmit any prompts, files, outputs, or other service data to any third-party model, application, MCP server, or integration, you do so at your own risk. We are not responsible for the security, privacy compliance, availability, or outputs of any such third party.

4. Plans, trials, usage limits, and changes

1. We may offer free trials, limited credits, quotas, or time-limited access. Limits may apply per account, per device, per IP, per period, and/or per feature.
2. Free trial/freemium features may be changed, reduced, paused, or withdrawn at any time.
3. Some features may be available only on paid plans and may differ by region, technical constraints, and model availability.
4. The Services and underlying models may change frequently. Outputs and behavior may change over time.

5. Payments, billing, cancellation, refunds

1. Payments are processed by Stripe (our third-party payment processor). Stripe's terms apply to payments.
2. Fees, and plan details will be shown at checkout and/or in your account. All fees quoted herein shall be exclusive of all taxes, which the You shall be responsible for, except for taxes on PatSnap's income. If You are based in the United Kingdom, or if the place of supply of the Services is determined to be the United Kingdom, PatSnap may charge VAT at the applicable rate.
3. If your plan auto-renews, it will renew unless you cancel before the renewal date.
4. You can cancel your subscription by contacting support at Product-support@patsnap.com.
5. Refunds are provided only as mentioned in these Terms of Service.
6. We may change prices from time to time. If a change affects an active subscription, we will provide notice as required by law and allow you to cancel before the new price takes effect for your next renewal.
7. You may choose to upgrade your subscription from basic free version to paid premium version by contacting our support team at Product-support@patsnap.com.

6. Acceptable use and restrictions

You agree not to, and not to permit any third party to:

• use the Services in any manner that violates applicable law or infringes, misappropriates, or otherwise violates the rights of any person or entity;
• upload, input, transmit, or otherwise provide any content or data that you do not have the right to use, including third-party confidential information, trade secrets, personal data, or copyrighted materials without all required rights, consents, or permissions;
• bypass, disable, interfere with, or circumvent any limits, access controls, security features, authentication measures, usage restrictions, or commercial restrictions of the Services, including by creating multiple accounts, using VPNs or similar tools to evade controls, exceeding rate limits or quotas, or providing unauthorized access to any third party;
• scrape, crawl, harvest, copy, download, extract, or otherwise access data, content, Outputs, or other materials from the Services by automated or programmatic means, except to the extent expressly permitted under your plan, applicable documentation, or a separate written agreement with us;
• use any API, DaaS feed, Output, or other content made available through the Services in excess of the scope, limits, or permissions applicable to your subscription or plan, including any applicable rate limits, quotas, seat limits, use case restrictions, or redistribution restrictions;
• resell, sublicense, redistribute, republish, or otherwise make available any data, Outputs, API responses, or other content obtained through the Services, except as expressly permitted by your plan or a separate written agreement with us;
• reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or otherwise attempt to discover the source code, underlying models, prompts, system prompts, datasets, or other underlying components of the Services, except to the extent such restriction is prohibited by law;
• use the Services, or any data, Outputs, or materials from the Services, to develop, train, fine-tune, validate, or improve any competing product, service, model, database, or dataset; or
• use the Services in any way that could damage, disable, overburden, or impair the Services or interfere with any other user's access or use.

7. User content, prompts, and files

1. You may provide text prompts and upload files or other materials (together, "Inputs"). You retain your rights in your Inputs.
2. You grant PatSnap a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, transmit, process, reproduce, and use your Inputs solely to provide, secure, maintain, and improve the Services, including generating Outputs you request, preventing abuse and fraud, debugging and reliability, and compliance and enforcement.
3. To support security, fraud prevention, troubleshooting, and service quality, we may log requests and Outputs, including full prompts/Outputs and related metadata. Prompts/uploads/Outputs are retained with no fixed retention period unless deleted upon request or as required by law. Logs are retained for 6 months.
4. You can request deletion of your prompts/uploads/Outputs by contacting Product-support@patsnap.com. Some data may remain in backups or logs for a limited period or where retention is required by law.

8. AI features, outputs, and important disclaimers

1. The Services may generate or provide responses, analyses, summaries, recommendations, API responses, data feeds, or other results ("Outputs") using artificial intelligence and machine learning, including third-party large language models and other third-party providers.
2. Outputs may be inaccurate, incomplete, misleading, delayed, unavailable, or not up to date, and may vary over time or for similar inputs. You should independently review and verify Outputs before relying on them.
3. Outputs are provided for informational and research purposes only and are not legal, regulatory, medical, financial, investment, or other professional advice, and are not a substitute for independent judgment or professional review.
4. Where the Services provide patent-related or IP-related workflows (including drafting, novelty, or FTO-style activities), you acknowledge that Outputs may contain errors or omissions and you must obtain independent professional review before filing, publishing, or taking action based on them.
5. Outputs may be similar to content available elsewhere and may inadvertently resemble or include third-party materials or publicly available information. PatSnap does not guarantee that Outputs will be exclusive, original, or non-infringing.
6. Nothing in this clause excludes or limits any rights or remedies that cannot lawfully be excluded under applicable consumer law.

9. Training and model improvement

1. PatSnap will not use your Inputs to train or fine-tune general-purpose models unless we provide clear notice and obtain any consent required by applicable law.
2. We may use Inputs for operational purposes such as safety, abuse prevention, debugging, and improving the Services' functionality (e.g., evaluating quality and fixing errors), consistent with our Privacy Notice.
3. We route prompts to third-party model providers (request for updates Sub-processor list). Your Inputs/Outputs may be processed by these providers to generate the Output. Third-party processing is subject to those providers' capabilities and terms.

10. Ownership and IP rights

1. PatSnap and its licensors own all rights, title, and interest in and to the Services, including any software, APIs, datasets, DaaS feeds, models, workflows, prompts, templates, user interface, documentation, branding, and all improvements, modifications, and derivative works thereof (collectively, "PatSnap IP"). Except for the limited rights expressly granted in these Terms, no rights are granted to you in or to the PatSnap IP.
2. For Outputs generated by designated Drafting Agents ("Drafting Outputs"), as between you and PatSnap, you own the Drafting Outputs. To the extent PatSnap holds any assignable rights in such Drafting Outputs, PatSnap hereby assigns those rights to you upon generation and payment (if applicable), subject to your compliance with these Terms. For clarity, this assignment does not transfer any rights in the underlying PatSnap IP, including the Services, models, workflows, prompts, templates, datasets, or other underlying technologies used to generate the Drafting Outputs.
3. For all Outputs other than Drafting Outputs ("Non-Drafting Outputs"), PatSnap retains all rights, title, and interest in such Non-Drafting Outputs and grants you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to use the Non-Drafting Outputs for your internal or personal purposes in connection with the Services, subject to these Terms. You must not resell, redistribute, publish at scale, create derivative datasets from, or otherwise commercially exploit Non-Drafting Outputs without PatSnap's prior written permission.
4. Any and all Outputs may contain information derived from third-party sources or publicly available materials. PatSnap does not grant you any rights in such third-party materials except to the extent permitted under applicable law or the relevant third-party terms.
5. If you provide suggestions, feedback, or ideas relating to the Services, you grant PatSnap a worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free right to use, reproduce, modify, and incorporate such feedback into the Services or other products without restriction or compensation.

11. Subprocessors and third-party services

1. The Services rely on third parties for payments, hosting, content delivery, AI model processing, monitoring, and customer support ("Subprocessors").
2. You acknowledge and agree that PatSnap may update or change Subprocessors from time to time. We will keep the Subprocessor list updated and, where a change materially affects processing of your Inputs, provide notice via the Services and/or email (where practicable). By continuing to use the Services after the change takes effect, you consent to the updated Subprocessors. If you do not agree, you must stop using the Services, request deletion of your content, and cancel your subscription.
3. You acknowledge that third-party model providers may receive full prompts and content and process them in plaintext in order to generate Outputs. The list of sub-processors is provided hereinbelow as Exhibit A.

12. Data location and cross-border processing

1. Depending on your location and/or the Services configuration, your data may be stored/processed in: (a) EU users: Frankfurt region; (b) Non-EU users: Virginia region.
2. The Services may not always differentiate EU vs US users at sign-up/checkout, and processing may involve cross-border transfers. By using the Services, you consent to processing and transfer of your data internationally as described in our Privacy Notice.

13. Availability, performance, and support

1. The Services are provided on an "as available" and "as is" basis. We do not provide any service-level agreement, uptime commitment, response time commitment, support commitment, or other guaranteed service standard for the free trial, freemium, or individual subscription tiers.
2. The Services may be unavailable, delayed, degraded, or subject to errors from time to time, including due to scheduled or unscheduled maintenance, security incidents, capacity constraints, outages, model or third-party provider issues, internet/network failures, or other operational reasons.
3. We may modify, suspend, withdraw, or restrict all or part of the Services at any time, temporarily or permanently, with or without notice, where reasonably necessary for maintenance, security, legal, technical, or business reasons.
4. Any support, maintenance, updates, or issue resolution provided by us is at our discretion unless expressly agreed in a separate written agreement. Nothing in these Terms, or in any product description, support communication, or marketing material, creates an SLA or guaranteed availability obligation for the Services.
5. Any service levels, uptime commitments, or support commitments will apply only if expressly set out in a separate written enterprise agreement signed by PatSnap.

14. Suspension and termination

1. You may stop using the Services at any time.
2. We may suspend, restrict, or terminate all or any part of your access to the Services immediately if we reasonably believe that: (a) You have materially breached these Terms; (b) your use of the Services creates a security risk, legal risk, or risk of harm to us, the Services, or any third party; (c) You have engaged in fraud, abuse, misuse, excessive use, attempted circumvention of limits or controls, or misuse of any API or API keys; (d) payment is overdue; or (e) suspension or termination is required by law, regulation, court order, sanctions requirements, or a third-party provider restriction.
3. Where suspension or termination is not based on serious grounds requiring immediate action, we may suspend or terminate your access on reasonable notice. Where practicable and legally permitted, we will give you notice of any suspension or termination.
4. We may also disable API keys, remove or restrict access to specific features, or limit access to the Services where reasonably necessary to protect the Services, our users, or our systems.
5. Upon termination, your right to access and use the Services ends immediately. Any accrued rights, payment obligations, and provisions intended to survive termination will survive, including those relating to intellectual property, disclaimers, limitations of liability, governing law, and any amounts owed to us. We may delete or anonymise your data after termination, subject to applicable law and our data retention practices.

15. Warranties and disclaimers

1. Except as expressly stated in these Terms, the Services, any APIs, data feeds, DaaS offerings, and Outputs are provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis.
2. To the maximum extent permitted by law, PatSnap does not warrant that the Services, any APIs, data feeds, DaaS offerings, or Outputs will be uninterrupted, error-free, secure, current, complete, accurate, fit for a particular purpose, or compatible with any third-party software, system, model, application, or integration.
3. Outputs and data made available through the Services may be incomplete, inaccurate, delayed, unavailable, or produce different results over time, and should be independently reviewed before being relied on.
4. To the maximum extent permitted by law, PatSnap disclaims all implied warranties, conditions, and representations not expressly set out in these Terms.
5. Nothing in these Terms excludes, restricts, or limits any rights or remedies that cannot lawfully be excluded under applicable consumer law, including under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

16. Limitation of liability

1. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability for: (a) death or personal injury caused by negligence; (b) fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; or (c) any liability that cannot be limited under applicable law.
2. To the maximum extent permitted by law, PatSnap's total liability arising out of or relating to the Services will not exceed the greater of: (a) the amounts you paid to PatSnap for the Services in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim; or (b) £1000 (or equivalent), if you paid nothing.
3. To the maximum extent permitted by law, PatSnap is not liable for any indirect, consequential, special, incidental, or punitive damages, or for loss of profits, revenue, data, business, goodwill, or opportunities, even if foreseeable.
4. You acknowledge that Outputs may be incorrect; PatSnap is not responsible for decisions you make based on Outputs.

17. Indemnity (user responsibility)

To the extent permitted by law, you agree to indemnify PatSnap against claims arising from: (a) your Inputs; (b) your misuse of the Services; or (c) your violation of these Terms or law.

18. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. We will post the updated Terms and update the "Last updated" date. If changes are material, we will provide additional notice where required by law. Continued use after changes take effect means you accept the updated Terms.

19. Governing law and jurisdiction

These Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales. The courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction, except where mandatory consumer protection laws provide otherwise.

Exhibit A - PatSnap's Sub-Processor

This Schedule lists third-party sub-processors engaged by PatSnap to process Customer Data on PatSnap's behalf for the purposes of delivering, operating, supporting, and securing the services.

Details: GDPR Article 28 - Description of Processing

1. Nature and purpose of processing: Provision of cloud infrastructure, support tooling, monitoring and observability, product analytics (where enabled), and AI-enabled functionality (where enabled) to deliver, operate, support, and secure the services.
2. Categories of data subjects: Customer-authorized users and customer contacts (including commercial contacts and support requesters), as applicable to the services and features used by the Customer.
3. Categories of personal data: Customer account data; service data stored and processed within the hosted environment; support interactions and related metadata; customer contact details provided for support; business contact information and account or contract metadata (excluding platform content); operational telemetry and technical identifiers (for example, IP addresses or request identifiers) for monitoring; usage events tied to user identifiers for product analytics; and, where AI-enabled features are used, prompts submitted by users and the generated outputs for the enabled AI workflows.
4. Duration of processing: For the period necessary to provide the applicable services and features, and otherwise in accordance with the parties' agreement(s), the DPA, and applicable retention and legal requirements.

Sub-Processor Register

Supplemental disclosures (informational)

For AI-enabled functionality, PatSnap discloses the specific model providers that may receive prompts and generate outputs for the relevant enabled workflow. Disclosures are feature-scoped and subject to data minimization. Where supported by the provider and PatSnap configuration, model training on Customer Data is disabled. Administrative controls are provided where available to disable optional AI features. Where international transfers occur, PatSnap applies recognized transfer mechanisms, including Standard Contractual Clauses or equivalent safeguards, where applicable.