Using secure.unified-patent-court.org

These Terms and Conditions (as defined below) are entered into by:

The user (hereinafter the “User” or “you” or a “Party”),

And

The Unified Patent Court (hereinafter the “UPC” or “we” or “us” or a “Party”).

The UPC website (hereinafter the “Website”) is operated and maintained for your personal use.

You agree to use this Website only for lawful purposes and in a manner that does not infringe the rights of, or restrict or inhibit the use and enjoyment of this Website by any third party, or that is not compliant with the Terms and Conditions.

We aim to update our Website regularly and may change the content at any time.

By using this Website, you indicate that you accept these Terms and Conditions and that you agree to abide by them. If you do not agree to these Terms and Conditions, you are not entitled to use the Website.

Scope of application, modifications

Access to and use of, any part of the Website, any document, material or other information, including text, images, sound and software (hereinafter the “Information”) made available on the Website and any of the Services provided via the Website (as defined below) are governed by these terms and conditions of use (hereinafter the “Terms and Conditions”) and constitute acceptance of these Terms and Conditions by the User.

These Terms and Conditions may be completed by additional terms and conditions applicable to individual services or parts of the Website, notwithstanding the application of these Terms and Conditions to the provision of such individual services.

The UPC reserves the right to amend these Terms and Conditions at any time by posting amended Terms and Conditions on the Website. Such amendments take effect on the date on which they are posted. Continued use of the Website or its Services constitutes acceptance of the changes concerned. If a User explicitly objects to any amended Terms and Conditions, such User shall no longer use the Website or the Services and as such, the UPC shall be entitled to revoke his/her access rights to the Services.

If any provision of these Terms and Conditions is for any reason held to be invalid, illegal or otherwise unenforceable, such unenforceability does not affect any other provision; the Terms and Conditions are then to be construed as if they had never contained the provision(s) in question and are to be interpreted, in so far as possible, in such a way as to maintain their original intent.

Purpose of the Website, modifications, access

The general purpose of the Website is to provide a central repository for the UPC, allowing the UPC to work in the digital age and to grant access to documents held by the UPC in accordance with applicable legal provisions; it will also offer additional services, such as facilities for interactive communication with the UPC and for web-based transactions (all these services, hereinafter the “Services”).

Subject to any legal provision governing access to documents held by the UPC in electronic form, the UPC reserves the right to modify, limit or discontinue – in full or in part and with prior reasonable notice – the Services and Information available on the Website at any time, to restrict access to the Website and to deny, at its sole discretion, any User’s access to the Website or any part thereof. In the event of discontinuation of the Services, or restriction or denial of access to the Website, the UPC shall inform the Users of an alternative method of communication, the purpose of which will be to exclusively replace the Communications services (as defined below).

User obligations

Users of the Website must comply with all applicable laws and regulations. They undertake not to violate or attempt to violate the UPC’s network security and in particular, not to upload or attach virus-containing or corrupted files or any software or programs that might damage the operation of another User’s computer. Users furthermore undertake not to restrict, or attempt to restrict in any way, access to or use of the Website or any Services by other Users (for example by generating, whether manually or in an automated fashion, unusually high numbers of Service accesses).

The Services available on this Website require prior registration. Users must provide correct and complete information when registering and update them if necessary. They must not misuse any access authorisation granted to them (for example by transferring data to unauthorised third persons). By registering, the Users agree to being contacted by the UPC by whatever means appropriate for the purposes of providing the Services to the Users.

Registered Users are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of their account and password to prevent unauthorised access to that account. Users must take all necessary steps to keep their password secure and must inform the UPC, without delay, if it is being or could be used without authorisation.

In the event of any violation of the above User obligations, the UPC is entitled to revoke the User’s access rights without prior notice.

Content

The UPC cannot guarantee that the Information is always comprehensive, complete, accurate and up-to-date. Consequently, the UPC shall not be liable for any loss or damage that may arise from any use of the Information made by the Users.

Copyright, use of content

All Information published on the Website is protected by intellectual property rights (including, inter alia, copyright, author’s rights, database rights, etc.) that are held by the UPC or by the party credited as its author.

Links to the pages on this Website are permitted provided that:

• the browser window does not contain any information other than that of the page of the present Website to which the link is made and its address;
• none of the information provided on this Website is modified.

Where our Website contains links to other sites and resources provided by third parties, these links are provided for your information only. We have no control over the contents of those sites or resources and shall not be liable for them or for any loss or damage that may arise from your use of them.

Technical errors and malfunctions, availability

The UPC aims at minimising technical errors and malfunctions. However, some data or other parts of the Information may have been created or structured in files or formats that are not error-free. The UPC cannot guarantee that the underlying files and the formats used are error-free and will not cause the User’s systems to malfunction.

The UPC cannot guarantee that the Website and the Services will always be available. Whilst the UPC is committed to ensuring that the availability of the Website will be essentially uninterrupted and that transmissions will be error-free, this cannot be guaranteed. Access to the Website and its Services may also occasionally be suspended, restricted or impeded to permit repairs, maintenance or the introduction of new services or facilities. In these events, the Users will be informed of such suspension beforehand via an appropriate means of communication, unless prior information is rendered technically impossible due to the cause of the suspension.

The UPC shall not be held liable for damages (including, but not limited to, failure of performance, computer virus, communication line failure, alteration of content, etc.) encountered as a result of using the Website or any linked external sites.

Security

The UPC offers data security by means of a two factor authentication.

However, the UPC does not guarantee that data transmitted is absolutely secure at all times from attacks by third parties, nor does it guarantee the absolute security of the data transmission process.

Communications

Where the Website contains facilities for the online exchange of information or communication with the UPC or other Users, be it through emails, access to mailing lists or other message or document posting facilities (hereinafter collectively referred to as “Communications”), the User agrees to use the Communications only to send and receive messages and materials relating to their application and to respect generally accepted standards of politeness and correctness. In particular, Users must not:

• defame, abuse, harass, stalk, threaten or otherwise violate the rights (such as rights of privacy and publicity) of others;
• publish, post, distribute or disseminate any defamatory, injurious, obscene, indecent or unlawful material or information;
• upload or attach material or files that contain software or other material protected by intellectual property rights (or by rights of privacy and publicity), unless the User holds the rights thereto or has received all authorizations to do so as may be required by law;
• upload or attach virus-containing or corrupted files or any other software or programs that might damage the operation of another’s computer;
• delete any author attributions, legal notices or proprietary designations or labels in any file that is uploaded;
• forge the origin or source of software or other material contained in a file that is uploaded.

The UPC reserves the right to block the User’s access to his/her account immediately and without prior notice in the event the User does not comply with the obligations provided for above, the violation of which would constitute a material breach of these Terms and Conditions.

The User shall defend, indemnify and hold the UPC harmless in the event of any threatened or actual claims or expenses (including reasonable legal fees) incurred by the UPC in relation to any use of the Communications made by the User.

Opt-Out

 

Web-based transactions

 

Translation service

The translation service generates an automated translation. It cannot be guaranteed that such translation output is intelligible, accurate, complete, reliable or fit for specific purposes.

Data Protection

When the Website is accessed, certain information about Users or visitors of the Website, such as internet protocol (IP) addresses, navigation through the site, software used and time spent, may be stored by the UPC or on its behalf. This information may be used for website traffic analysis only, and not to identify Users. No attempt will be made to monitor systematically individual users of IP addresses, or the actions that they perform.

Personal data may not be recorded or saved without the User’s express consent. By completing any data collection form on the Website, the User expressly agrees to the storage and processing of the data entered. All data provided by the User (such as names, addresses, credit card details, account information, etc.) will be treated as confidential, stored and processed only for the purpose for which it was collected and made available only to the unit responsible for dealing with it. In particular, personal data will not be passed on to third parties or published or made available for general access without the User’s express agreement or unless such passing on is necessary to comply with a request by or for the conclusion or fulfilment of a contract with that User, or unless the UPC is obliged to make such data available to public authorities.

Information about you and your visits to UPC

We process information about you in accordance with our privacy policy

You acknowledge and agree that you have carefully read and understood the privacy policy.

Virus protection

We make every effort to check and test material at all stages of production, however you must take your own precautions to ensure that the process which you employ for accessing this Website does not expose you to the risk of viruses, malicious computer code or other forms of interference which may damage your own computer system.

We will not be liable for any loss, disruption or damage to your data or your computer system which may occur whilst using material derived from this Website.

Viruses, hacking and other offences

You must not misuse our Website by knowingly introducing viruses, Trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material which is malicious or technologically harmful. You must not attempt to gain unauthorised access to our Website, or any computer or database connected to our Website. You must not attack our Website via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of-service attack.

We will report any such breach to the relevant law enforcement authorities and we will co-operate with those authorities by disclosing your identity to them.

Governing law

These Terms and Conditions shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of Luxembourg. Any dispute arising under these Terms and Conditions shall be subject to the jurisdiction of the court as determined in accordance with Article 5 of the Agreement of the Unitary Patent Court.

General

We shall not be held liable for any breach of these Terms and Conditions where such breach is due to circumstances beyond our reasonable control.

If we waive any rights available to us under these Terms and Conditions on one occasion, this does not mean that those rights will automatically be waived on any other occasion.