Terms of Service

Last updated: [date of publication]

1. The agreement

These terms are an agreement between you and IP Folks, [registered address] (“we”, “us”). By creating an account or buying a report, you accept them. Our Privacy Notice explains how we handle personal data and forms part of these terms.

Who may use the service. You must be at least 18. If you use the service for a company or other organisation, you confirm you may accept these terms on its behalf, and “you” includes it.

Your account. Give accurate details and keep them current. Keep your password to yourself; you are responsible for what is done through your account. Tell us at once at Info@ipfolks.com if you think someone else has used it.

2. What a report is, and what it is not

A report is the result of a prior-art search: it lists documents found that relate to the features of your disclosure and says how closely each bears on them. It is research to inform your decisions, not a legal opinion.

How it is produced. AI models read your disclosure, extract its technical features for you to confirm, search for prior art, and draft the report. Where possible, each reference is checked against the patent register that holds it, and the report shows which details a register confirmed and which rest on a model’s assessment. Models can misread a document or overlook one; assessments that were not confirmed by a register should be read as such. [If a human review is purchased: a reviewer checks and may revise the report before it is released.]

What a report cannot tell you.

• Whether your invention is patentable. That is a legal judgement about your claims as they end up being written, made by a patent attorney or agent and ultimately by an examiner.
• That nothing else exists. A search finds what it finds. Patent applications usually stay unpublished for about eighteen months, some registers cannot be searched, and non-patent material, such as product manuals and conference papers, is largely outside them.
• Anything about freedom to operate, meaning whether you may make or sell something without infringing others’ patents in force. That is a different search.

Not legal advice. We are not acting as your patent attorney or agent, and using the service creates no such relationship. Before filing, investing, or deciding not to file, take advice from a registered patent professional.

3. Your material and its confidentiality

You keep all rights in what you submit and in your inventions; we claim nothing in them.

What you allow us to do. You give us permission to store, copy and process your material, and to send it to the AI providers named in our Privacy Notice, only to provide the service to you. The permission ends when you delete the material, except for backups, which expire within 7 days.

Confidentiality. We treat your disclosure as confidential. We will not publish it, sell it, use it to train AI models, or disclose it except to our processors for providing the service, to a reviewer assigned to your report, or where the law compels us. We use AI providers only under paid business terms that forbid them to train on your material. We cannot tell you what legal effect, if any, using an online service may have on the novelty of your invention; if that matters to you, ask a patent professional before submitting.

What you confirm. You have the right to submit the material, including any personal details of inventors or others in it, and submitting it does not breach anyone else’s rights or a duty of confidence you owe.

Your reports. You may use your reports as you wish. The service itself, its software and its report layouts remain ours.

4. Paying

You pay once for what you choose; nothing renews, and no card is stored for future charges.

• Prices are shown before you pay, in the currency displayed, with any tax the checkout adds. Payment is taken by Razorpay or PayPal under their own terms.
• Reports you have bought do not expire.

Refunds and cancelling are covered by our Refund and Cancellation Policy, which forms part of these terms.

5. Using the service fairly

Please do not: submit material you have no right to share; use the service for anything unlawful; try to reach other people’s accounts or data; overload, probe or scrape the service, or get around its limits or bot checks; or resell it without our written agreement.

Availability. We aim to keep the service running but cannot promise it will always be available or free of errors. We may change how it works, including which AI models and data sources it uses, as long as the change does not reduce what you have already paid for.

Suspension and closing. We may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms, telling you why unless the law or security prevents it. You may close your account at any time by emailing Info@ipfolks.com; delete your inventions first from the “My data” page, or ask us to. What happens to unused reports is set out in the Refund and Cancellation Policy.

6. Liability, law and changes

Limits of our responsibility. The service and its reports are provided for research, as described in section 2. To the extent the law allows: we are not liable for decisions you or others make based on a report, for prior art a search did not find, or for lost profits, lost opportunities or other indirect losses; and our total liability for any claim is limited to [the amount you paid for the report concerned]. Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot legally be limited, such as for fraud, or removes rights consumers have under the law of their country.

Governing law. These terms are governed by the laws of India, and the courts of New Delhi have jurisdiction. If you are a consumer living elsewhere, you keep the protections of your local law and may bring a claim in your local courts.

Changes to these terms. We may update these terms. We will email account holders before a material change takes effect; purchases already made continue under the terms that applied when you paid.

Contact. IP Folks, [registered address]. Info@ipfolks.com.