Terms of Service

By using PriorLens (the "Service"), you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service. These terms may be updated; continued use after changes constitutes acceptance.

PriorLens is an AI-assisted research tool that helps you search publicly available US patent records using USPTO-provided patent data services and compare them against claim text you supply. Live patent search may be temporarily unavailable during transitions between USPTO data services (see in-product notices); saved scans, claim charts, and document parsing are unaffected.

Not legal advice. Search results, relevance scores, risk assessments, AI-generated rationales, and recommendations are research aids only. They do not constitute legal advice, a legal opinion, a freedom-to-operate analysis, or a patentability opinion (§102/§103 or otherwise). Always consult a qualified, licensed patent attorney or agent before making decisions about filing, product development, or licensing.

Accuracy. Search results and AI-generated assessments are approximate and may miss relevant patents, return irrelevant results, or mischaracterize risk. Manual review of full patent documents is always required.

Coverage. The Service searches patent documents only, via EPO Open Patent Services (worldwide, English-preferred). It does not search academic papers, products, standards, or other non-patent literature, and it cannot see US applications that have been filed but not yet published (typically the first ~18 months after filing). It does not cover utility models, trade secrets, or other forms of intellectual property outside patent documents.

To save scans, create share links, or use the higher daily AI quota, you must sign in. Authentication is provided by Neon Auth. You are responsible for the security of your sign-in credentials and for any activity under your account. You may delete your account data at any time from Settings; deletion is irreversible and removes your saved scans, annotations, share links, and usage records from our servers.

You retain ownership of the queries, claim text, uploaded documents, annotations, and notes you submit. By using the Service you grant us a limited license to process this content for the purpose of operating the Service for you (running searches, generating rationales, storing scans you save, rendering share links you create).

When you save a scan, the query, parsed claims, ranked references, AI rationales, and your annotations are stored on our servers and tied to your account. When you create a share link, anyone with the link can read that saved scan in full until you revoke the link or it expires.

We do not use your queries or saved scans to train AI models.

You agree to use the Service only for lawful purposes and in accordance with these Terms. You must not:

• Use the Service to violate any law, regulation, or third-party right.
• Submit content you do not have the right to share (e.g. third-party trade secrets, export-controlled material).
• Attempt to circumvent usage limits, access controls, or security measures.
• Reverse-engineer or scrape the Service in ways not permitted by applicable law.
• Use the Service to harass, defame, or harm others, or to share unlawful or infringing content via share links.

The Service depends on third parties including EPO OPS (patent data services), Anthropic (AI query expansion, rationale, report generation, and the provisional-drafting assistant), OpenAI (embeddings, when enabled), Gab AI (fallback AI analysis), Neon (authentication and database), Stripe (payment processing), and Fly.io (hosting). Invention/claim text sent to Anthropic, OpenAI, or Gab AI is only sent once we've confirmed the relevant account is on a paid tier with no-training terms, and is passed through an automatic (imperfect) filter that strips detected emails, phone numbers, and street addresses first. Availability and accuracy of these services is outside our control; we are not liable for outages, errors, or changes in third-party services that affect the Service.

The Service currently offers a free tier with monthly limits on searches and uploads and a daily token budget for AI features. No payment is currently accepted. We reserve the right to enforce usage limits on the server, to throttle or suspend abusive accounts, and to introduce paid plans in the future.

You may stop using the Service at any time and may delete your account from Settings. We may suspend or terminate your access if you violate these Terms or if we reasonably believe your use threatens the security or availability of the Service.

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, ACCURACY, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE, OR THAT RESULTS WILL BE COMPLETE OR ACCURATE.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, PRIORLENS AND ITS OPERATORS SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE SERVICE — INCLUDING LOSS OF PROFITS, DATA, GOODWILL, OR BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY — EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY.

Our total liability to you for any claim arising from or related to the Service shall not exceed the greater of (a) the amount you paid us in the twelve months preceding the claim or (b) USD 50.

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless PriorLens and its operators from any claim arising out of your misuse of the Service or your violation of these Terms.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the United States and the State of Delaware, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles. Disputes shall be resolved in the state or federal courts located in Delaware.

Questions? Email legal@priorlens.com.