Privacy Policy

1. Information We Collect

We collect and receive personal information and other information from a variety of sources and in a variety of ways, including those listed below. We may collect information directly from you, from publicly available sources, from service providers, from business partners, from clients and prospective clients, and from other third parties. For purposes of this Policy, "personal information" means information that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with an identified or identifiable individual, subject to any exclusions provided by applicable law.

We may collect the following categories of information:

• Legal services and business administration information. We collect personal information and other information in the course of providing legal services and administering our business. For example, we may collect personal information about clients, prospective clients, inventors, founders, officers, employees, representatives, service providers, counterparties, experts, witnesses, and other individuals relevant to legal, consulting, prosecution, transactional, or operational matters. The type of information may vary depending on the matter and may include name, email address, postal address, telephone number, company affiliation, title, and unique identifiers.
• Information you provide through the Sites and Services. When you visit our Sites or use our Services, you may choose to provide information such as your name, email address, telephone number, company name, title, mailing address, payment information, scheduling information, webinar registrations, event registrations, survey responses, and communications preferences. You may provide this information by contacting us, requesting a consultation, scheduling a call, subscribing to updates, downloading materials, registering for an event, filling out a form, submitting a request, or communicating with us through chat, voice, or email.
• Patent, legal, and workflow content. Depending on the Service, we may collect invention disclosures, patent application drafts, claims, drawings, office actions, responses, legal and technical documents, prompts, instructions, notes, work product, comments, and similar content that you upload, submit, or transmit through our Services.
• Chatbot and voice interaction information. If you use an AI assistant, chatbot, voice assistant, or related feature, we may collect prompts, chat logs, uploaded files, transcripts, recordings, timing data, metadata, support annotations, and related interaction history.
• Purchase and transaction information. We may collect payment information, billing address, subscription information, invoice records, and transaction history in connection with purchases, subscriptions, event registrations, or payments for services.
• Job application information. If you apply for a job or contractor opportunity with us, we may collect your name, email address, telephone number, resume, cover letter, work history, educational history, references, and any other information you choose to provide in connection with your application.
• Device, browser, and usage information. When you visit our Sites, we may collect information such as browser type, operating system, device identifiers, IP address, domain name, approximate location, referring and exit URLs, pages visited, time spent on pages, and other activity and log information.
• Social media and third-party platform information. If you interact with us through social media, event platforms, scheduling tools, or third-party integrations, we may receive certain information associated with your account or interaction, subject to the settings and policies of those third parties.
• Other information from third parties. We may obtain information about you from third parties, including entities that refer you to us, professional databases, conference organizers, business partners, public sources, and service providers.

You are not required to provide us with personal information in all cases. However, without certain information, we may not be able to provide the requested Services, consider you for employment, respond to your request, or enable certain Site functionality.

2. How We Use Personal Information

We may use personal information for the following purposes:

• to provide legal, consulting, software, patent drafting, office action, prosecution support, educational, and related services;
• to evaluate, respond to, and administer client and prospective client inquiries, consultations, and requests for services;
• to perform conflict checks, intake review, diligence, billing, collections, compliance, and business administration;
• to process transactions, subscriptions, event registrations, and payments;
• to provide, operate, maintain, personalize, secure, support, and improve our Sites and Services;
• to generate, review, and deliver AI-assisted or automated outputs requested through the Services;
• to respond to communications, customer support inquiries, and requests for information;
• to send newsletters, legal updates, event invitations, marketing communications, and other materials we believe may be of interest to you, subject to your preferences and applicable law;
• to evaluate job applicants and maintain recruiting and personnel-related records;
• to improve the functionality, customization, content, personalization, performance, analytics, security, and design of the Sites and Services;
• to comply with legal, ethical, contractual, regulatory, risk management, audit, insurance, and recordkeeping obligations;
• to protect and defend our rights, safety, confidentiality, systems, property, personnel, clients, and third parties; and
• for any other purpose disclosed at the time of collection or with your consent, where required.

Where applicable law requires a legal basis for processing, we may process personal information based on one or more of the following: your consent; the performance of a contract; steps taken at your request before entering into a contract; compliance with legal obligations; protection of vital interests; and our legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of our clients, business partners, and service providers, provided those interests are not overridden by applicable law.

3. AI, Automation, and Model Use

Our Services may include artificial intelligence, machine learning, automation, analytics, and similar technologies. These technologies may be used to support drafting, document review, intake, search, summarization, office-action response, workflow assistance, chat, voice, and related functionality.

Unless otherwise expressly agreed in writing for a particular Service or client relationship, PatentPC does not use confidential client-submitted content for the purpose of training, retraining, or fine-tuning third-party foundation models or PatentPC's general-purpose AI models.

We may use service interaction data, support metadata, error logs, usage telemetry, de-identified information, and aggregated information to operate, secure, troubleshoot, audit, improve, and analyze the Sites and Services, provided that such use does not disclose your confidential information except as necessary to provide the Services or as otherwise permitted by law.

If a Service relies on third-party cloud or AI providers, we may transfer relevant information to those providers for processing on our behalf, subject to contractual, technical, and operational controls that we implement in support of our privacy and confidentiality commitments.

4. How We Disclose Personal Information

Your personal information may be shared among PatentPC affiliated entities, personnel, and offices as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this Policy.

We may also disclose personal information to unrelated third parties as follows:

• to persons involved in a legal matter or business matter, such as clients, co-counsel, opposing counsel, experts, witnesses, courts, government agencies, patent offices, filing vendors, and other parties relevant to the matter;
• to service providers, contractors, subprocessors, insurers, auditors, translators, transcriptionists, payment processors, cloud hosting providers, analytics providers, communications providers, and other vendors that support our business or Services;
• to business and marketing partners;
• to event venues, caterers, sponsors, and related providers in connection with events, webinars, or in-person activities, including where dietary restrictions, accessibility requests, or accommodations are involved;
• in connection with a merger, acquisition, financing, bankruptcy, restructuring, diligence process, or sale of some or all of our assets;
• if we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to comply with law, regulation, court order, subpoena, legal process, ethical obligations, insurance requirements, or professional obligations;
• if we believe disclosure will help investigate, prevent, or respond to fraud, unlawful activity, threats, security incidents, or misuse of the Sites or Services;
• to protect your safety, the safety of others, or the security of our Sites, systems, property, or Services; and
• with other parties with your consent or at your direction.

5. Cookies and Similar Technologies

When you visit our Sites, we may place, or authorize third parties to place, cookies or similar technologies on your device. These technologies help our Sites operate more efficiently and may improve your experience by recognizing you when you return, remembering preferences, keeping you logged in, enabling core functionality, analyzing usage, and measuring the effectiveness of content and campaigns.

We may use cookies, pixels, web beacons, local storage, SDKs, and similar technologies for necessary, functional, personalization, analytics, and marketing purposes. Depending on your jurisdiction, you may be able to manage preferences for non-essential cookies through a cookie banner, preference center, or browser settings. Deleting or blocking cookies may limit certain functionality of the Sites.

Our Sites may use analytics tools, including Google Analytics and similar technologies, to help us understand usage patterns and improve the Sites and Services. The Sites may not respond to browser-based "Do Not Track" signals unless required by applicable law.

6. Your Rights and Choices

Depending on your relationship with us, your location, and applicable law, you may have the right to request access to, correction of, restriction of, objection to, portability of, or deletion of certain personal information. You may also have the right to withdraw consent where we rely on consent as a legal basis.

To exercise any applicable rights, please contact us using the information in Section 14. We may take reasonable steps to verify your identity before responding to a request. We may deny or limit a request where permitted by law, including where we are unable to verify identity, where privilege or confidentiality obligations apply, where legal retention obligations apply, or where the request is otherwise exempt under applicable law.

Marketing choices

If you wish to opt out of marketing communications, you may use the unsubscribe instructions included in our emails or contact us directly. Even if you opt out of marketing communications, we may still send you non-marketing messages, such as administrative, service, billing, event, security, or legal notices.

California residents

If you are a California resident and applicable California privacy law applies, you may have additional rights regarding access, deletion, correction, and information about categories of personal information collected, used, disclosed, sold, or shared. PatentPC does not sell personal information for monetary consideration in the ordinary sense. If any data practice is deemed to constitute a "sale" or "sharing" under applicable law, we will provide the notices and choices required by law.

You may designate an authorized agent to submit a request on your behalf where permitted by law, subject to verification requirements. PatentPC will not discriminate against you for exercising applicable privacy rights.

EEA, UK, and other international data subjects

If you are located in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or another jurisdiction with similar privacy laws, you may have rights under applicable law to access, correct, transfer, object to, restrict, or delete your personal information, subject to applicable conditions and limitations. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant supervisory authority in your jurisdiction.

7. Cross-Border Transfers

PatentPC is based in the United States, and personal information may be transferred to, stored in, and processed in the United States and other jurisdictions where PatentPC, its affiliates, or its service providers operate. These jurisdictions may not provide the same level of data protection as your home jurisdiction.

Where required by applicable law, we will implement lawful and appropriate safeguards for cross-border transfers of personal information.

8. Data Retention

We retain personal information for as long as reasonably necessary to provide Services you request, maintain our relationship with you, comply with legal, professional, contractual, insurance, tax, accounting, and recordkeeping obligations, preserve evidence, resolve disputes, enforce agreements, and protect our rights and legitimate interests.

Retention periods may vary depending on the type of information, the nature of the matter or Service, the applicable legal obligations, document preservation requirements, backup cycles, and any applicable internal retention policies. When information is no longer required, we may delete, anonymize, aggregate, or securely isolate it, consistent with applicable law and operational requirements.

9. Security

We use technical, administrative, organizational, and physical safeguards that are designed to protect personal information against unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction. These safeguards may include access controls, encryption, logging, monitoring, network protections, vendor management, and security procedures.

However, no system or transmission over the internet can be guaranteed to be completely secure. Accordingly, we do not guarantee that our safeguards will prevent every unauthorized attempt to access, use, or disclose personal information.

10. Chatbots, Voice Interfaces, and Sensitive Information

If you use a chatbot, AI assistant, voice assistant, intake bot, or similar interactive feature, we may process prompts, chat logs, uploaded files, transcripts, recordings, metadata, and other interaction data to provide the feature, support users, maintain security, troubleshoot issues, and improve service quality.

Voice and chatbot features may rely on third-party providers for transcription, synthesis, routing, storage, or model inference. You should not submit confidential, privileged, trade secret, export-controlled, highly sensitive personal, or time-sensitive information through chat or voice features unless we have specifically designated the feature or workflow for that purpose.

If you provide another person's personal information, voice data, or communication content through our Services, you are responsible for obtaining any required notices, permissions, and consents under applicable law.

11. Other Websites, Platforms, and Integrations

The Sites and Services may contain links to or integrations with third-party websites, social media platforms, scheduling tools, payment services, event tools, or other online services that are not controlled by PatentPC. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those third parties. You should review their privacy policies before providing information to them.

12. Children's Privacy

The Sites and Services are not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children under 13 without legally valid authorization. If you believe a child under 13 has provided personal information to us without proper authorization, please contact us so that we can take appropriate action.

13. Changes to This Policy

We may revise this Policy from time to time. We will post any revised version on the relevant Site or Service and update the "Last Updated" date above. If we make material changes, we may also provide additional notice, such as by posting a notice on a Site, sending an email, or using another method permitted by law.

By continuing to access or use the Sites or Services after the revised Policy becomes effective, you acknowledge the revised Policy, except where applicable law requires additional consent.

14. Contacting Us

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this Policy, or wish to exercise any rights described in this Policy, please contact us at:

PatentPC 4701 Patrick Henry Dr, Building #16 Santa Clara, CA 95054 contact@patentpc.com

You may also use the contact options available on PatentPC.com.