Privacy and other information

This General Patent Masters Privacy Policy (also referred to as the ‘Privacy Policy’) provides information on the collection, use, sharing and processing of personal information by Patent Masters LLC and its affiliates (“Patent Masters”, “we” or “us”) in connection with your use of Patent Masters websites, mobile applications, and social media pages that link to this Privacy Policy, your interactions with Patent Masters during in-person meetings or at Patent Masters events, and in the context of other offline sales and marketing activities. This Privacy Policy also explains the choices you have in relation to these processing activities.

This Privacy Policy was last updated on May 5, 2019. However, the Privacy Policy can change over time, for example to comply with legal requirements or to meet changing business needs.

As used in this Privacy Policy, ‘personal information’ or ‘personal data’ means information that relates to an identified individual or to an identifiable individual. For example, this could include among other things your name, address, email address, business contact details, or information gathered through your interactions with us via our websites or at events. Personal information is also referred to as ‘information about you.’ For more detail about the types of information about you that we may process, please refer to Section 4 below.

We may use personal information for the following purposes:

to communicate and respond to your requests and inquiries to Patent Masters; to deliver functionality on our sites and for their technical and functional management; to market our products and services or related products and services, and to tailor our marketing and sales activities to your or your company’s interests; to engage in transactions with customers, suppliers and business partners and to process orders for Patent Masters products and services; to analyse, develop, improve and optimize the use, function and performance of our sites and products and services; to manage the security of our sites, networks and systems; to comply with applicable laws and regulations and to operate our business;

These purposes are described below in further detail.

To communicate and respond to your requests and inquiries to Patent Masters

If you get in touch with us (such as by submitting contact forms on our sites, attending Patent Masters events or other occasions, sending an email or by visiting social media platforms), we process information about you to communicate with you and to respond to your requests or other inquiries. We can also process personal information to interact with you on third party social networks.

To deliver functionality on our sites and for their technical and functional management

When you choose to register with us (such as to make use of our communities), we need to process the personal information provided by you so that we can create and manage a personal account for you. Upon creating your account, we will send you your personal login information. This personal information enables us to administer your account, for example by changing your password for you.

To market our products and services or related products and services and to tailor marketing and sales activities

Patent Masters may use information about you to notify you about new product releases and service developments, events, alerts, updates, prices, terms, special offers and associated campaigns and promotions (including via newsletters). Patent Masters may also use personal information to advertise Patent Masters’s products and services or related products and services, and also to have our distributors, resellers or partners notify you about our products or services or their related products or services (such as via joint sales or product promotions). We do our best to tailor your website visit, marketing experience and our communications to your expressed interests. This happens, for example, if you sign up for an Patent Masters community or program.

If you attend an event, Patent Masters may process information about you gathered in relation to the event and can share information about your attendance with your company. Patent Masters may also permit designated event partners or conference sponsors to send you up to two communications related to your event attendance. Please note that our partners or conference sponsors may directly request information about you at their conference booths or presentations, and their use of your information that you provide to them will be subject to their privacy policies.

We may also process your personal information to post testimonials on our sites, but will first obtain your consent to use your name and testimonial.

To engage in transactions with customers, suppliers and business partners and to process purchases of our products and services

If you place an order for our products and services, or if you provide services to Patent Masters, our employees, customers or partners as a supplier or business partner, Patent Masters processes information about you to engage in and administer the relevant transactions (such as by sending invoices and making payments), administer your order, and help you get started and adopt our products and services (e.g., by contacting you to activate your Cloud services credits). If you download products or services from our sites, Patent Masters uses information about you to confirm certain information about your order (for example, that you did not experience problems in the download process).

To analyse, develop, improve and optimize the use, function and performance of our sites and products and services

We may process personal information in order to analyse, develop, improve and optimize the use, function and performance of our sites and products and services, as well as marketing and sales campaigns. In case the sites permit you to participate in interactive discussions, create a profile, post comments, opportunities or other content, or communicate directly with another user or otherwise engage in networking activities, Patent Masters may process personal information when moderating these activities.

To manage the security of our sites, networks and systems

We may collect site use data for security and operations management to help keep our sites, networks and systems secure, or to investigate and prevent potential fraud, including ad fraud and cyber-attacks and to detect bots.

To comply with applicable laws and regulations and to operate our business

In some cases, we have to process personal information to comply with applicable laws and regulations. For example, to respond to a request from a regulator or to defend a legal claim. We may also process personal information in the performance and operation of our business, such as to conduct internal audits and investigations or for finance and accounting and archiving and insurance purposes.