Last updated: April 17, 2019
Main changes since last version effective from March 9, 2018
- Updated postal address
- Updated website domain from pintzandpartners.com to pintz.com
Please read these Terms of Service ("Terms" or "Terms and Conditions") carefully before using the http://www.passport.pintz.com website and the Passport European Patent Validation online service (the "Service" or "Passport") operated by Pintz & Partners LLC ("us", "we", or "our").
Your access to and use of the Service is conditioned on your acceptance of and compliance with these Terms. These Terms apply to all visitors, users and others who access or use the Service.
Pintz & Partners LLC
Pf. 245, 1444 Budapest, Hungary
EU-VAT identification no.: HU22954275
passport@pintzandpartners.com
+36-1/458-3353
www.pintz.com
1.1. Pintz & Partners offers a web interface called PASSPORT with a platform for ordering validations of European Patents.
1.2. Pintz & Partners undertakes all the steps necessary to fulfil the validations requirements in any contracting (and/or associated) state(s) designated in the European Patent(s) and requested by the Principal (that is you, the person ordering any of the services provided by Pintz & Partners). Pintz & Partners only deals with translations and administrative procedures related to published patents.
1.3. Pintz & Partners undertakes:
- to use the services of qualified translators and patent agents/attorneys where the validation is filed by a local legal representative,
- to file the validation documents in the rest of the countries and to use the services of qualified translators.
2.1. Any instruction given to Pintz & Partners shall be in writing or through Pintz & Partners’ web interface.
2.2. The Principal shall provide Pintz & Partners with all the necessary information needed for the instructions to be carried out correctly.
2.3. Pintz & Partners shall only accept instructions for validation and shall only fulfil requests sent through Pintz & Partners’ web interface if the instruction/request is given in a timely manner by the Principal, namely:
After the patent is intended to be granted or already granted. Orders may be placed until one week before the validation deadline, but regarding last-minute orders, Pintz & Partners cannot guarantee that all cases will be filed on time, even though we at Pintz & Partners shall of course do our best.
2.4. For any order passed through Pintz & Partners’ web interface, Pintz & Partners undertakes to send to the Principal an email confirmation, an invoice (or debit note) and Power of Attorney forms.
2.5. The agreement between Pintz & Partners and the Principal is only formed upon the written acceptance (not the acknowledgement of receipt) by Pintz & Partners of the order of the Principal, at the conditions of Pintz & Partners.
2.6. All communication should be directed to passport@pintzandpartners.com.
2.7. Correspondence language between the Principal and Pintz & Partners or the local attorney – regardless of language of the validation request – shall be English.
3.1. Pintz & Partners processes the validations after having received every information necessary and the payment indicated in the invoice (or debit note), provided that the instruction complies with the terms set out in the present ‘Business Conditions and Terms of Use’. If the instruction does not comply with the terms set out above and below or the details given by the Principal contain incorrect or erroneous information (e.g. the Principal indicates a smaller number of pages or words than the actual number), Pintz & Partners shall not process and fulfil any such mandate requests, irrespective of the automatic email confirmation sent about receiving the order.
3.2. Notwithstanding the general rule described in the above 3.1., if you are a legal representative and you as Principal order our service on behalf of a patent owner, Pintz & Partners may agree to process the validations as soon as possible, without waiting for your payment to arrive, and give instruction to our agents to prepare the validation automatically, provided that you and your firm has no outstanding or overdue payments (apart from the fee of the latest order). First time clients, even if legal representatives, will be charged in advance.
3.3. Official receipt of validation shall be sent directly to the Principal via e-mail and no any costs shall be charged in this regard.
3.4. Pintz & Partners provides services according to the rules of legal representation and mandate agreements. This is based on the cooperation of the parties. It comes from the nature of this legal relation that Pintz & Partners is obliged to handle your case professionally and carefully, using the services of specialist agents and translators. You as Principal acknowledge that your instruction to Pintz & Partners to file patent applications and validations on your behalf does not guarantee the eventual success of your patent application. In case of any application for registration or validation the final decision is made by the authorities therefore Pintz & Partners has no responsibility in this regard. Whether or not your application is granted is a matter for the patent offices in your chosen countries and is outside of the control of Pintz & Partners and its partners.
The operation of Pintz & Partners is ruled by the Statute No. XXXII of 1995 on patent attorneys (Hungary).
4.1. You as Principal undertake to
(i) promptly answer all questions sent by Pintz & Partners, including those asked by our agents, translators or associates;
(ii) promptly return all forms, including signed Power of Attorney forms, to Pintz & Partners or our nominated Agents or Associates;
(iii) ensure that the contact person within your organization, identified by the e-mail address, and who instructs Pintz & Partners has the authority to place such orders and to bind your organization to the payment of the amount as stated in the quote/order, without capped amount;
(iv) accept our Business Conditions and Terms of Use policies; and
(v) inform Pintz & Partners of any change of address and/or of status.
4.2. The Principal shall read and understand the information of procedure provided on www.pintz.com and on www.passport.pintz.com.
4.3. Late filing of Power of Attorney forms may result in additional fees or in loss of rights.
4.4. Pintz & Partners may not be held responsible for any loss of rights if it has not been kept properly informed about changes which have occurred by the EP application, the patent holder or the Principal.
5.1. The mandate can be revoked and the order can be cancelled by the Principal any time, however, any costs incurred up to that time shall be charged to and paid by the Principal, including the fees of the services already completed. Mandates are processed within a short period of time. There is no possibility for reimbursement of fees once the application is forwarded to the authorities since the mandate is completed and the authorities do not reimburse the official fees.
5.2. Pintz & Partners reserves the right to refuse or to suspend any mandate requests or terminate any accepted mandates with 15 days notice. Overpayments shall be refunded if any.
6.1. Whilst Pintz & Partners makes every effort to calculate the costs of validating your patent application correctly on our website, we do not guarantee the accuracy of these numbers.
6.2. Quotes and estimates assume that orders are received in good time before any relevant patent office deadlines. Late orders (such as late filing of Power of Attorneys forms) and assignments may incur additional late fees and urgency charges, which are not shown in our fee estimates and offers. Countries that allow the filing deadline to be extended will generally incur extra charges. This amount varies per country. Additional charges may also apply depending on corresponding partner charges.
6.3. Patent specifications containing tables, formulae or other aspects requiring special formatting may not be accurately calculated in the automated estimate calculations. In these cases you may choose to manually enter the number of words or ask us to help calculate these for you.
6.4. Whilst most parameters of your patent are automatically calculated, some elements such as the number of independent claims or the location of the patent office conducting the international examination cannot be calculated, and hence we apply some assumptions in order to produce your estimate.
6.5. If your patent specification includes sequence listings, surcharges may apply in some countries.
6.6. Estimates do not include renewal fees which may be due at or immediately after filing in some jurisdictions.
Please note, that national patents have to be renewed each year by paying the annuity fees to the Patent Offices. A patent will not be valid, unless the renewal fees are paid. The renewal fees and the service fee for paying the renewal fees are not included in the quote. Please contact Pintz & Partners, if you wish to order renewal services too.
7.1. Our fees are subject to change at any time, without prior notice.
7.2. You as Principal agree to pay us in the currency we indicate on our invoices, in the methods shown. Our fees are usually based on EUR. Currency fluctuations from other local European currencies into EUR may apply. We only accept wire payment to our bank account. Checks are not accepted. If you do not bear the costs of wire transfer, you may receive a second invoice (or debit note) covering the bank fees.
7.3. After receiving an order, Pintz & Partners will send the Principal an invoice (or debit note) including all the costs related to the validation order. Pintz & Partners only starts the validation process after receiving the full payment. As there are neither disbursement nor bank charges applied, the Principal is expected to cover the bank fees related to the wire transfer. If the bank fees are deducted from Pintz & Partners’ side, Pintz & Partners will charge the Principal the extra costs in a second invoice. However, Pintz & Partners also reserves the right to refund the amount after deducting the bank charges and not start the validation process until the full payment has arrived. You as Principal agree to pay our invoices by the deadlines indicated on our communications. Late payment may require Pintz & Partners to add additional late fees to the invoices or to refuse to accept your order.
7.4. Pintz & Partners reserves the right to issue a subsequent invoice if, between the time an order is placed and the time a European patent is validated, the patent office of the receiving country increases the relevant government fees.
7.5. Whilst Pintz & Partners tries to accommodate urgent and late instructions, late fees may be applied where insufficient time remains to complete a translation or filing before a deadline without applying for an official extension or causing work to be rushed or extra resources employed. Where late fees are needed they will be clearly indicated in your invoices.
7.6. You as Principal agree to sign and to provide with proper signature any required power of attorney documents or other documents and send them to the Pintz & Partners agents before the relevant due dates. Failure to send these signed documents by the deadlines may result in the agents charging you for the cost of the action of attending to the separate filing of these documents.
8.1. An associate of Pintz & Partners will contact you (usually within 3 working days) and send you an invoice.
8.2. Pintz & Partners’ invoices have to be paid within 15 days from the invoice date by bank transfer. The fees indicated on our debit note do not include the remittance fee of your payment. Please note that all of the remittance costs must be paid by you as Principal when you place your order. Pintz & Partners reserves the right to handle any case and to file any application only after having received the total payment. If a part of the total amount is missing from the payment, Pintz & Partners reserves the right to refund the received amount after deducting bank charges.
Bank connection details:
Raiffeisenlandesbank Niederösterreich-Wien AG, Vienna, Austria
IBAN: AT35 3200 0000 1266 6392
Swift: RLNWATWW XXX
8.3. In case of a delayed payment, an interest of 2% per month may be invoiced by Pintz & Partners at its discretion.
8.4. In case of no or partial payment within the month of placing the order, Pintz & Partners will be entitled to cancel immediately all pending orders, close their files and invoice the work that has already been performed.
8.5. Unless specified explicitly otherwise, any order for the services commits the Principal whether the Principal is the beneficiary of the service, the representative or the intermediary.
8.6. If you, as Principal have several outstanding debts or overdue payments that have not been settled, any payments made on your behalf will be accounted as offset for the debts that have the oldest expiry date. You as Principal agree that in such cases you are not entitled to choose any other debt that became overdue at a later date and you are not entitled to give us instructions regarding the use of the funds.
9.1. Should you fail to make due payment for any services supplied by Pintz & Partners or commit a breach of any of these terms, or being a natural person commit an act of bankruptcy, or being a corporation by act or omission enables the appointment of an administrator, scheme manager, trustee, official manager, receiver, receiver and manager, liquidator or any other person authorized to enter into possession or assume control of any property pursuant to a mortgage or other security, Pintz & Partners may, without prejudice to any other rights it may have, do any or all of the following
(i) withdraw any credit facilities which may have been extended to you and require immediate payment of all moneys owing or accrued;
(ii) withhold any further performance of Services required under the accepted order; or
(iii) suspend and/or terminate performance of any Services which Pintz & Partners has with you.
You shall be liable for all costs associated with the exercise by Pintz & Partners of its rights under this clause, which shall be repayable on demand.
9.2. In the event that the Principal has not respected its commitments and obligations, the contract can be terminated by Pintz & Partners eight days after appropriate notice, and without affecting the Pintz & Partners’ right to claim compensation and its claim to late payment interests.
10.1. By using Services supplied by Pintz & Partners and our Agents and Associates to file patent applications and associated papers such as assignments, preliminary amendments and translations, you agree not to assert that a conflict is created which would thereby preclude the Agent or Associate from representing other clients in matters relating to a patent application in the selected countries.
10.2. It is our policy that we refuse to handle cases (partially or totally) where there is a conflict of interest in respect of existing clients of Pintz & Partners or its Agent or Associate. After filing, you as Principal together with the attorney handling the validation (Pintz & Partners or its Agent or Associate) will determine whether or not a conflict exists which would preclude the selected attorney from performing substantive legal services for the patent owner in the selected country/state. In the event a conflict exists, Pintz & Partners or the Agent or Associate will transfer the application file in the relevant country to counsel of the patent owner's selection and payments made in relation to the said state(s) will be refunded.
11.1. Pintz & Partners does not act either as attorneys or legal consultants in respect of the countries where the validation is not filed by Pintz & Partners directly but through a local attorney. In respect of these countries the responsibility of Pintz & Partners is limited to selecting a local legal representative who is qualified to represent the patent owner in a professional manner. As regards to translations, the responsibility of Pintz & Partners is limited to selecting a qualified translator who has the necessary skills and knowledge to translate from and into the relevant technical language.
11.2. Pintz & Partners (and the local attorneys) do not check the translations. Nevertheless if compliance with national validation formalities requires significant additional workload (e. g. editing or remaking the drawings, charts or formulas), costs of this professional attorney’s work shall be charged to the Principal. Similarly, if the Principal indicates erroneously the number of words and/or omit the number of words in drawings, charts or formulas, the costs calculated in relation with translation of these words shall be charged to the Principal. If the initial instruction of the Principal does not comply with the terms set out in the present ‘Business Conditions and Terms of Use’ above and below or the details given by the Principal contain incorrect or erroneous information (e.g. the Principal indicates a smaller number of pages or words than the actual number), and Pintz & Partners starts to process and fulfil any such mandate requests, Pintz & Partners shall not be liable for not being able to complete the validation filing and Pintz & Partners shall not be liable for the additional costs and any potential loss of rights or damages on the side of the Principal or the patent owner.
11.3. The Principal will never engage the liability of an individual acting or signing on behalf of Pintz & Partners.
11.4. Except in the case of fraud imputable to Pintz & Partners, the responsibility for possible damages suffered by the Principal in particular in the event of loss of an Industrial Property Right, for which Pintz & Partners could be directly or indirectly involved, will not exceed the figure of one hundred thousand Euros, even in the event of serious fault by Pintz & Partners.
11.5. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Pintz & Partners and its subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, employees, agents, partners, associates and licensors will not be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, including without limitation, loss of profits, data, use, goodwill, or other intangible losses, resulting from
(i) your access to or use of or inability to access or use the services except in the case of gross negligence or fraud on the part of Pintz & Partners;
(ii) any content obtained from the services; and
(iii) unauthorized access, use or alteration of your transmissions or content,
whether based on warranty, contract, tort (including negligence) or any other legal theory, whether or not Pintz & Partners has been informed of the possibility of such damage, and even if a remedy set forth herein is found to have failed of its essential purpose.
11.6. You as Principal agree to indemnify and hold harmless Pintz & Partners and our Agents and Associates against all claims, liabilities, damages, losses, costs and expenses, including legal fees, suffered by Pintz & Partners and arising out of any breach by you of these terms or any other liabilities arising out of your use of this website, or the use by any other person accessing this website using your computer equipment or internet access account or your infringement of the intellectual property rights or other proprietary rights of any third party.
11.7. The content of the pages of this website is for your general information and use only. It is subject to change without notice.
11.8. Pintz & Partners reserves the right to restrict or prevent your access to these services and/or this website at our sole discretion.
11.9. The services, that Pintz & Partners provides, are always evolving and the form and nature of the services that Pintz & Partners provides may change from time to time without prior notice to you (the Principal). In addition, Pintz & Partners may stop (permanently or temporarily) providing these services (or any features within these services) to you or to users generally and may not be able to provide you with prior notice. Pintz & Partners also retains the right to create limits on use at our sole discretion at any time without prior notice to you.
12.1. All information contained within this website is provided for general information purposes only and on the understanding that none of the content herein constitutes legal or other professional advice. The application and impact of laws can vary widely depending on the specific facts involved. In the case of a specific problem or query, professional advice should be sought.
12.2. Pintz & Partners has made every attempt to ensure that all information contained within this website has been obtained from reliable sources, but all such information is provided "as is", with no guarantee of completeness or accuracy. Neither Pintz & Partners nor any third parties provide any warranty or guarantee as to the accuracy, timeliness, performance, completeness or suitability of the information and materials found or offered on this website for any particular purpose. You, as Principal acknowledge that such information and materials may contain inaccuracies or errors and Pintz & Partners expressly exclude liability for any such inaccuracies or errors to the fullest extent permitted by law. Under no circumstances will Pintz & Partners be liable in any way for any information, including, but not limited to, any errors or omissions in any information, or any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of the use of any information posted, emailed, transmitted or otherwise made available via the services.
12.3. Your access to and use of these services or any information is at your own risk. You understand and agree that the services of Pintz & Partners are provided to you on an "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE" basis. Without limiting the foregoing, Pintz & Partners DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT. Pintz & Partners will not be responsible or liable for any harm to your computer system, loss of data, or other harm that results from your access to or use of the Services, or any information. You also agree that Pintz & Partners has no responsibility or liability for the deletion of, or the failure to store or to transmit, any information and other communications maintained by the Services. We make no warranty that the services will meet your requirements or be available on an uninterrupted, secure, or error-free basis.
12.4. From time to time this website may also include links to other websites. These links are provided for your convenience to provide further information. They do not signify that Pintz & Partners endorse the website(s). We have no responsibility for the content of the linked website(s).
The failure of Pintz & Partners to enforce any right or provision of these terms will not be deemed a waiver of such right or provision. In the event that any provision of these terms is held to be invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions of these terms will remain in full force and effect.
14.1. Any claim based on Pintz & Partners’ services will be governed by Hungarian law only.
14.2. Any disputes between the parties arising from the performance of the provisions of these Terms must be settled through friendly consultation by the parties.
14.3. The following Hungarian courts are exclusively competent to hear and determine any dispute relating to the relations between Pintz & Partners and the Principal: Budai Központi Kerületi Bíróság, Fejér Megyei Bíróság.
We may revise these terms and conditions from time to time; the most current version will always be on www.pintz.com and on www.passport.pintz.com. You should check this page regularly to ensure that you are informed of any changes. By continuing to access or use the services after those revisions become effective, you agree to be bound by the revised terms.
Effective: April 17, 2019
In case you feel that your matter is not treated appropriately, please turn directly to the office head / managing director. We thoroughly investigate any complaint.
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