Patexia Inc., which owns and operates the website www.patexia.com (“the Site”) is committed to protecting your privacy. Maintaining the trust of our users is key to the success of our business and this Privacy Policy is intended to clearly explain our practices so you can feel confident using our services. This Policy explains privacy practices for Patexia.com and the entire Patexia platform (together with the Site, the “Services”). It explains how your personal information is used, and with whom the information may be shared. We define “Personal Information” as personally identifiable information about an individual person, such as a name, address, email address, phone number, or other identifier that permits contacting of a specific individual, or such other definition that applies under applicable privacy laws. If you have any questions regarding this policy, please contact us.

This Privacy Policy is part of the Terms of Service for the Patexia platform. By agreeing to the Terms of Service and using the Patexia platform, you agree to be bound by the terms described in this Privacy Policy. Any disputes that arise over privacy between a user and Patexia are subject to the provisions of this Policy and the Terms of Service for the Patexia platform, which are available in our Terms of Service.

1. Information we Collect

Personal Information you Provide Directly
In connection with your use of the Services, we ask for and may collect a variety of Personal Information from and about you in different ways. For example, when you register an account to become a Patexia user (“User”), we ask for and store your name and/or your business's name, address, email address, password and other identifying contact data. You can also choose to provide additional information through your profile such as your gender, photograph or avatar, and date of birth or age. In addition, Users may provide us with Personal Information about your professional background, work history, intellectual properties, and legal, technology or other business services that you, or the business you represent, may provide. We may also collect other Personal Information you disclose in any of our online forums, blogs, social newsfeeds, etc., in the form of comments, questions or answers. Although Users may make purchases through our Services, we use third party payment processors and we do not store your payment card information.

Information from Public Sources

In connection with certain aspects of the Services (e.g., Patexia Insights) we collect information from the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER), the U.S. Patent and Trade Office Public Records, or other federal, state, or local government records that are made available to the public. This information may not be considered “Personal Information,” or may be subject to different standards of treatment under certain privacy laws.

Information we Collect Automatically
To ensure that the Site is well managed and to facilitate improved navigation within the site, Patexia may use “cookies” (a small amount of data sent to a user's web browser from a web server and stored in a user's browser), “web beacons” (electronic images that allow the website to count visitors who have accessed a particular page and to access certain cookies), or other similar tracking technologies to collect information about your operating system, settings and system configurations, IP address, device model, device ID and other unique device identifiers, the webpages you access within our Sites, the website that led you to the Sites, the website to which you go after leaving the Sites, links you click within the Sites, the dates and times you access the Sites, event information (e.g., system crashes), and web log data. Our use of these tracking technologies is described in more detail in Section 5 below. 

2. How we Use your Information.  Patexia uses your Personal Information for the following purposes:

- Providing the Services.

To provide and enhance the Services and for other customer service purposes and to ensure that our content associated with the Services is most effective for you and your device, as well as to register you as a User of the site and to facilitate transactions for intellectual property or other services between different Users. For example, you may apply for a job or to provide expert services through Patexia Connect and you may participate in contests through Patexia Contest or Crowd Search. We also use your Personal Information you provide to us to customize your experience on our website. For example, when you login to your account, we will display the members you are connected to and recent posts from your network.

- Communicating with you or Others.

To communicate with you or respond to your inquiries, including via email or the “Contact Us” feature of our Services. We will use your e-mail address in order to convey information between Users although your e-mail address will only be made visible and available to users at your discretion unless your e-mail address has been collected from a publicly available record. 

- Marketing and Advertising. 

To provide you with news and newsletters, special offers, and promotions, including via email; to contact you about products or information we think may interest you; and for other marketing, advertising, and promotional purposes; in each case from which you can unsubscribe at any time.  We will procure your consent prior to initiating any marketing or advertising messages to the extent consent is required under applicable privacy and data protection laws.

- Analyzing Use of the Services. 

To better understand how users access and use the Services, both on an aggregated and individualized basis; to respond to user desires and preferences; for other research, analytical, and statistical purposes; and to monitor the security or your use of the Services.

- To Protect Rights and Interests. 

To protect our rights and interests as well as the rights and interests of our users and any other person – as well as to enforce this Privacy Policy and the Terms of Service.

- Complying with the Law.

To comply with applicable legal obligations, including law enforcement or governmental requests for information.- Aggregated Data. We may also aggregate your information, and information about your preferences and activities, with those of all or a particular group of users to obtain some statistics about users’ activities (“Aggregated Data”). Aggregated Data may be derived from your Personal Information but it is not Personal Information.  For example, we may track the number of people who view certain pages, or who use certain features, or we may compile the total dollar amount of sales conducted through our site in a particular geographic region. Aggregated Data allows us to continue to grow and provide you with quality service through more accurate marketing and advertising of our services. If we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your Personal Information so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as Personal Information which will be used in accordance with this Policy.

3. Access to your Personal Information

At any time after you have signed onto the Site, you may edit your Patexia profile to request access to information we have collected regarding you or your business or to notify us of changes to such information. Once confirmed, any new item of information will replace the corresponding information previously provided. You also have the ability to terminate your account by contacting Patexia. Your personal profile and information will be deleted from our database. However, your previous postings and transactions will still be available to users who can view your posts or to entities who were part of that transaction.

4. Publicly-Available Information.

Content distributed through Patexia’s sharing features and third party integrations may result in displaying some of your information outside of Patexia.  For example, when you post content that is open for public discussion, your content, including your name as the contributor and photo may be displayed in search engine results (e.g., Google or Microsoft Bing). If you choose to engage in public activities on the site, such as posting comments, any information you submit can be read, collected, or used by others. Or, if you have linked your Patexia account with your Facebook account, you can easily share content to both in Patexia as well as to Facebook. Please exercise caution when deciding to disclose any Personal Information in public activities or submissions.

5. Disclosure of personal information to third parties

Patexia takes the privacy of its Users very seriously, and we do not sell, rent, or otherwise provide your Personal Information to third parties, except as described in this policy. However, under the following business or legal conditions, Patexia may have to disclose your personal data to others.

Affiliates

We may disclose Information to any current or future affiliates, parent companies, or subsidiaries.

Patexia’s Website and Application

We receive information when you interact with and use the Patexia website and platform technology. For instance, we will know when you share updates, submit articles, use Patexia’s research tool, etc.

Service Providers

Patexia may employ or engage other companies and individuals to perform necessary business functions on behalf of Patexia (e.g., outside contractors or service providers). If it is necessary to perform these functions, these persons may be provided with Personal Information, but will be prohibited by contract from using this information for any other purpose other than providing the required services. 

Legal Compliance

Under certain circumstances, disclosure of your Personal Information may be required in order to comply with the law. For example, Patexia may disclose your Personal Information if, in its own best judgment, it is required to do so in order to comply with a law, regulation, judicial proceeding, judicial or governmental subpoena, court order, warrant, or other legal process, including law enforcement, or to a government institution that has asserted its lawful authority to obtain the information. However, that to the extent we are legally permitted to do so and it is practicable to do so, we will seek to notify you prior to sharing your Personal Information pursuant to this section.

Business Transfers or Change of Ownership

In the event that ownership of Patexia changes as a result of a merger, acquisition, transfer of a business unit to another company, bankruptcy proceeding, or as part of any other similar business transfer, your Personal Information may be transferred. If such a transfer takes place, you will be notified of any material changes to the Privacy Policy.

Protecting Rights and Interests.

We may disclose Personal Information where we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the safety of any person, violations of our Terms of Service or this Privacy Policy, or as evidence in litigation in which we are involved.

6. Cookies and other Tracking Mechanisms. 

We and our service providers use cookies and other tracking mechanisms to track your use of the Services.

- Cookies.

We or our service providers may use cookies to track visitor activity on the Services such as the pages visited and time spent on the Services.  A cookie is a text file that a website transfers to your computer’s hard drive for record-keeping purposes.  Most browsers allow users to refuse cookies.  The Help portion of the toolbar on most browsers will tell you how to prevent your computer from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie, or how to disable cookies altogether.  Visitors to the Services who disable cookies may not be able to browse certain areas of the Services.

- Clear GIFs, pixel tags and other technologies. 

Clear GIFs are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in function to cookies, which are embedded invisibly on web pages.  We or our service providers may use clear GIFs (also known as web beacons, web bugs or pixel tags), in connection with the Services to track the activities of visitors to the Services, help us manage content, and compile statistics about usage of the Services.  We or our service providers may also use clear GIFs in HTML emails to our users, to help us track email response rates, identify when our emails are viewed, and track whether our emails are forwarded.

- Local Storage Objects.

We may use Flash Local Storage Objects (“Flash LSOs”) to store your Services preferences and to personalize your visit.  Flash LSOs are different from browser cookies because of the amount and type of data stored.  Typically, you cannot control, delete, or disable the acceptance of Flash LSOs through your web browser.  For more information on Flash LSOs, or to learn how to manage your settings for Flash LSOs, go to the Adobe Flash Player Help Page, choose “Global Storage Settings Panel” and follow the instructions.  To see the Flash LSOs currently on your computer, choose “Website Storage Settings Panel” and follow the instructions to review and, if you choose, to delete any specific Flash LSO.

- Do Not Track. 

The Services do not respond to Do Not Track signals sent by your browser at this time.  You may disable certain tracking as discussed in this section (e.g., by disabling cookies).

7. Third Party Analytics. 

We may use service providers to help us evaluate use of the Services.  We or our service providers use automated devices and applications to evaluate use of the Services and to help us improve the Services, their performance, and user experiences.  These entities may use cookies and other tracking technologies, such as web beacons or Flash LSO, to perform their services.  To learn more about Google’s privacy practices, please review the Google Privacy Policy at https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/. You can also download the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on to prevent their data from being used by Google Analytics at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

8. Security

We have taken steps to help protect your Personal Information from loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction. Please be aware that despite our efforts, no data security measures can guarantee 100% security.  We are not responsible for any lost, stolen, or compromised passwords or for any activity on your account via unauthorized password activity. Remember that any information you voluntarily disclose online in any news, message boards, or forums may be collected and used by others.

9. Data Retention.

We retain your Personal Information for as long as necessary to achieve the purposes for which they were collected, or for other important purposes such as complying with legal obligations, resolving disputes, and enforcing our agreements.

10. Your Choices. 

We may send periodic promotional emails to you.  You may opt out of such communications by following the opt-out instructions contained in the email.  Please note that it may take up to ten (10) business days for us to process opt-out requests.  If you opt out of receiving promotional emails, we may still send you emails about products or services that you have requested or received from us.

11. Visitors from outside the United States
Patexia’s offices are located in, and the Services are hosted from, the United States. If you visit the site from another country, please be aware that information you provide to us or that we obtain as a result of your use of the Site may be processed in and transferred to the United States and will be subject to U.S. law. U.S. privacy and data protection laws may not be equivalent to the laws in your country of residence. By using the Services or providing us with your information, you consent to the collection, transfer, storage, and processing of information to and in the United States.

12. Legal disclaimers
Patexia may provide links to other websites from time to time. Patexia is not responsible for the privacy practices or content of those sites. In order to safeguard your privacy, please review the privacy policies of any sites you may visit before providing any Personal Information to them. This Privacy Policy only applies to your relationship with Patexia. It does not apply to the interactions you have with any other individual or group on our platform. In particular, Patexia is not responsible for any disclosure made by any other users of the Patexia platform. Your privacy is governed solely by any agreements you may have with other users and is beyond the scope of this Privacy Policy.

13. Changes to this privacy policy
It may be necessary from time to time for us to modify this policy to reflect changes in the way we collect and use information, or changes in privacy-related laws, regulations, or industry standards.  Accordingly, we reserve the right to change this policy at any time by notifying users of the changes through an announcement on this website or via email. Personal Information will be handled in accordance with the policy in effect at the time the data is used. 

14. Conflict
The provisions in the Terms of Service will apply where any provisions of the Privacy Policy conflict with the provisions of the Terms of Service.

15. Contacting Patexia
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, or believe that its terms have not been complied with, please contact Patexia Inc. 

16. Miscellaneous. 

Our Services are not targeted to children under thirteen (13) years of age.  If we discover that a child under thirteen (13) has provided us with Personal Information, we will promptly delete such Personal Information from our systems. California residents may request a list of certain third parties to which we have disclosed your Personal Information for their own direct marketing purposes.  You may make one request per calendar year.  In your request, please attest to the fact that you are a California resident and provide a current California address for your response.  You may request this information in writing by contacting us.  Please allow up to thirty (30) days for a response.

Policy last updated July 11, 2023
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