When you use the PatentsView website, you provide us with personal information voluntarily. This includes name, e-mail address, comments, phone number, and other information you may share. Any personal information you provide will never be released, sold, or rented to any entities or individuals outside of the PatentsView initiative. This Privacy Policy is subject to change without notice. Changes to the Privacy Policy will be posted on this page.  

Your registration on this website signifies your agreement with this Privacy Policy. 

Information Collected and Stored Automatically

PatentsView and the American Institutes for Research (AIR) web servers automatically collect and save the default information customarily logged by the web server software. Specifically, the date and time, originating IP address, object requested, and completion status of the request is collected and saved for each http request received by the server. We also use an authorized Google Analytics agent to collect comparable information on our behalf. 

The PatentsView website uses persistent cookies to enable the Google Analytics program to measure how new and returning visitors use the website over time. 

On a monthly or more-frequent basis, we review this information to determine the traffic through the servers, the number of pages served, and the level of demand for pages of interest. The analysis of this information helps the PatentsView team establish priorities and allocate resources to better accomplish our mission. Analysis of this information also may help identify problem areas of the website or improve overall service. Information is retained for as long as necessary to perform useful analysis. 

PatentsView Community Registration / Members 

Your registration for the PatentsView Community signifies your agreement of this Privacy Policy. 

You may use the community, products, and services only in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations, these Terms of Use, and any applicable additional terms. You further agree that you will not: 

1. other than for your use of the community, the products, and/or services, as expressly permitted in these Terms of Use, access or attempt to access any systems or servers on which the community is hosted or modify or alter the community in any way; 
    
2. submit, display, or transmit any user content, or any content via the systems or services on which the community is hosted, in violation of any proprietary rights of, or your contractual obligations to, any third party, or in violation of applicable laws, rules, and regulations; 
    
3. submit, display, or transmit any images, photographs, graphics, links, audio files, video files, or similar content that exceed the PatentsView website's  capacity limits or that you do not own or have the necessary and appropriate rights to submit, display, or transmit; 
    
4. submit, display, or transmit any spam, duplicative messages, unauthorized promotions or advertisements, surveys, contests, chain letters, or pyramid schemes; 
    
5. forge headers, create a false identity, or otherwise manipulate identifiers to deceive others or disguise the origin of any content transmitted to or via the PatentsView website; 
    
6. use the community and/or services to threaten, defame, abuse, assault, stalk, harass, or otherwise violate the rights of any other person or entity, including, without limitation, the rights of privacy or publicity; 
    
7. publish, post, display, or disseminate any profane, obscene, indecent, unlawful, terroristic, violent, or hateful content; 
    
8. offer, sell, broker, purchase, or seek any unethical, profane, obscene, indecent, unlawful, terroristic, violent, or hateful services; 
    
9. collect, store, publish, post, sell, transmit, or disclose personal data about other members (see Data in Action Spotlight below) or users of the community unless authorized to do so; 
    
10. upload or otherwise transmit files that contain viruses, worms, Trojan horses, malicious code, spyware, adware, sniffers, corrupted files, or similar software or programs; or 
     
11. restrict or prevent any other member or user of the community from using the community and/or services. 

Forum/Community Discussion Comments 

If you choose to submit a forum comment, the information you provide as part of the comment and your username will be posted to the site. All comments are moderated, and only those that comply with our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy will be publicly posted. PatentsView will not edit or alter individual comments. If you simply visit a forum page, your visit will be recorded for statistical purposes, as with other areas of our website. 

Data in Action Spotlight 

If you choose to submit an article or Data in Action Spotlight, only your name and organization will be included in the content article. 

E-Mail 

If you choose to provide us with personal information in an e-mail, we will use that information to respond to your message and to help us get you the information you have requested. We do not collect personal information for any purpose other than to respond to you. We only share the information you give us with another government agency if your inquiry relates to that agency or as otherwise required by law. Moreover, we do not store any personal information independent of the e-mail message, create individual profiles with the information you provide, or give it to any private organizations. We do not collect information for commercial marketing. 

Copyright 

Proper citation 

It is considered a good practice, both academically and editorially, to properly credit the source of any materials not authored by you. Subject to other terms described on this page, you may cite materials obtained from the PatentsView website using any or all of the following: 

• PatentsView 
• www.patentsview.org 

Patent information 

Patents are published as part of the terms of granting the patent to the inventor. The inventor’s rights to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention throughout the United States or importing the invention into the United States for a limited time is not compromised by the publication of the description of the invention. In other words, the fact that a patent's description may have been published without copyright restrictions does not give you permission to manufacture or use the invention without permission from the inventor during the active life of the patent.  

Trademark information 

Trademark images are published by PatentsView for public information dissemination purposes in accordance with the law. If you wish to use a trademark obtained from our records, you must do so in accordance with the individual licensing policies of the mark’s owners. PatentsView will not assist in contacting trademark owners or arranging and managing licensing agreements. 

Pursuant to federal law, most government-produced materials appearing on this website are not subject to copyright restrictions within the United States and are therefore in the public domain. Public domain information may be freely distributed and copied, but it is requested that in any subsequent use PatentsView be given appropriate attribution per the proper citation section above (e.g., “Source: PatentsView or www.patentsview.org”). PatentsView reserves the right to assert copyright protection internationally. 

Links to Other Sites 

The PatentsViews website contains links to websites outside of PatentsView, including those to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, other federal agencies, international sites, and private organizations. Be aware that whenever you follow a link to another site, you are subject to the terms, conditions, and privacy policy of that site.