Terms of Service
1. Acceptance of Terms
Welcome to ProteinIQ! These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of ProteinIQ's bioinformatics platform, tools, and related services (collectively, the "Service") operated by ProteinIQ ("we," "us," or "our").
By accessing or using our Service, you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you disagree with any part of these Terms, then you may not access the Service.
2. Description of Service
ProteinIQ provides web-based bioinformatics tools and analysis services for protein research, structural biology, and related scientific applications. Our Service includes:
- Protein sequence and structure analysis tools
- Data visualization and computational analysis
- File format conversion utilities
- Research data management capabilities
- Documentation and educational resources
3. User Accounts
To access certain features of our Service, you must create an account. You agree to provide accurate, current, and complete information, maintain and update your account information, keep your account credentials secure, accept responsibility for all activities under your account, and notify us immediately of any unauthorized use. You must be at least 16 years old to create an account. If you are under 18, you represent that you have your parent or legal guardian's consent to use the Service and that they have read and agreed to these Terms. You may not create an account if you are located in a country embargoed by the United States or if you are on the U.S. Treasury Department's list of Specially Designated Nationals. You are solely responsible for maintaining the security of your account credentials and must immediately notify us at support@proteiniq.io if you suspect unauthorized access to your account. We are not liable for any losses resulting from unauthorized use of your account.
4. Subscriptions and Payments
4.1 Free and Paid Services. Certain Services are available free of charge. We may offer paid subscription plans ("Paid Services") with enhanced features, increased usage limits, or priority support. Subscription details, features, and pricing are available on our website.
4.2 Payment Terms. If you subscribe to Paid Services, you agree to pay all applicable fees and taxes in U.S. Dollars, provide accurate and current payment information, authorize automatic billing to your payment method, and pay fees according to the billing frequency selected (monthly or annually). We reserve the right to change pricing with 30 days notice to existing subscribers.
4.3 Automatic Renewal and Cancellation. Subscriptions automatically renew at the end of each billing period unless cancelled. You may cancel your subscription at any time through your account settings or by contacting support. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period.
4.4 Refunds and Credits. Payments for subscriptions are generally non-refundable. We may, at our sole discretion, provide pro-rated refunds for certain circumstances such as service outages lasting more than 48 consecutive hours, billing errors on our part, or cancellation within 7 days of initial subscription (first-time subscribers only). No refunds are provided for partial month usage or after downloading or using any Paid Service features.
4.5 Failed Payments and Suspension. If payment fails, we may retry charging your payment method, suspend access to Paid Services after 7 days, or terminate your account after 30 days of non-payment. You remain liable for all unpaid fees.
5. Acceptable Use
5.1 Permitted Uses. You may use our Service for legitimate scientific research and analysis, educational purposes, academic collaboration, and commercial research (subject to applicable plan limitations).
5.2 Prohibited Uses. You agree not to use the Service for any illegal or unauthorized purpose, upload malicious code, viruses, or harmful content, attempt to gain unauthorized access to our systems, reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble our software, use automated scripts, bots, or scrapers to overwhelm our servers or extract data, share account credentials or violate usage limits, upload data containing personal health information without proper authorization, interfere with other users' access to the Service, use the Service to develop competing products, submit content that is defamatory, obscene, harassing, abusive, hateful, or pornographic, violate any applicable intellectual property rights, publish any computational results without clearly citing ProteinIQ as the source, misrepresent the source of any computational outputs or that they were generated by AI, use the Service for high-risk activities including but not limited to medical diagnosis, drug discovery for clinical use, or safety-critical applications, or circumvent, remove, or disable any security or technological measures of the Service.
6. User Content and Data
6.1 Your Data Ownership. You retain all rights, title, and interest in your scientific data, research results, and any content you upload to our Service ("User Content"). We do not claim ownership of your User Content.
6.2 License to Us. By uploading User Content, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, and display your User Content solely as necessary to provide the Service to you, operate, improve, and develop our Service, generate computational outputs and analyses, ensure security and prevent abuse, and comply with legal obligations. This license is transferable and sub-licensable to our service providers and partners solely for the purpose of providing the Service. This license terminates when you delete your User Content or terminate your account, except that we may retain copies as necessary for legal compliance, safety, security purposes, or as required by law.
6.3 Data Responsibility and Deletion. You are responsible for ensuring you have all necessary rights to upload and analyze your data, complying with all applicable data protection laws (including GDPR, CCPA), obtaining all necessary permissions for sensitive or personal data, maintaining independent backups of important data, ensuring your data does not violate any third party rights, complying with your institution's data handling policies, and not uploading any protected health information (PHI) unless specifically authorized. We may delete your User Content at any time, with or without notice, if we determine it violates these Terms or applicable law. You acknowledge that we have no obligation to retain your User Content and may delete it at our sole discretion.
7. Intellectual Property
7.1 Our Rights. The Service, including its software, algorithms, documentation, and design, is owned by ProteinIQ and protected by intellectual property laws. We retain all rights not expressly granted to you.
7.2 Limited License. We grant you a personal, non-sublicensable, non-exclusive, non-transferable, limited license to use the Service for your internal use only, subject to these Terms. This license is revocable at any time and automatically terminates if you breach these Terms.
7.3 Feedback. Any suggestions, feedback, enhancement requests, or other recommendations you provide about our Service ("Feedback") will be owned by ProteinIQ. You hereby assign to us all rights, title, and interest in any Feedback and agree that we may use such Feedback without compensation or obligation to you.
7.4 Third-Party Content. The Service may include content from third parties. We do not control, endorse, or assume responsibility for such content. Your interactions with third-party content are solely between you and the third party.
8. Service Availability and Modifications
We strive to maintain high availability but do not guarantee uninterrupted access. The Service may be temporarily unavailable due to maintenance, updates, or technical issues. We reserve the right to modify, suspend, or discontinue any part of the Service at any time, with reasonable notice for significant changes.
Beta Features: We may include experimental or beta features that are provided "as is" and may contain errors or function differently than released features. Your use of beta features is at your own risk.
9. Disclaimers and Limitations
9.1 AI-Generated Content and Scientific Results. Our Service uses artificial intelligence and machine learning models to generate computational outputs. You acknowledge that AI-generated content may contain incorrect, biased, incomplete, or misleading information. Results are not validated for clinical, diagnostic, therapeutic, or medical purposes. Do not use our Service or any outputs for medical advice, drug development for clinical use, or any safety-critical applications. Our tools provide computational predictions and analyses that should be used as research aids only. Always verify computational results through appropriate experimental methods. Due to the nature of AI tools, other users may receive similar or identical outputs when using similar inputs. You acknowledge this possibility and that such other users may use their own outputs for their purposes. Some of our AI capabilities may incorporate third-party models or datasets, which may be subject to additional license restrictions. Any outputs are not a substitute for advice from qualified professionals in relevant fields.
9.2 Service Disclaimer. The Service is provided "as is" without warranties of any kind. We disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We are not responsible for any content created by users or third parties.
9.3 No Liability. PROTEINIQ SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANYTHING. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW: ProteinIQ, its officers, directors, employees, agents, and affiliates shall have NO LIABILITY WHATSOEVER for any damages, losses, costs, or expenses of any kind arising from or relating to your use of the Service. We shall not be liable for ANY direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential, punitive, or other damages, including but not limited to loss of profits, data, research time, or academic opportunities, research setbacks, publication delays, or academic consequences, business interruption or lost opportunities, cost of substitute services or technology failures, or any other damages or losses of any kind. Your exclusive remedy for any issues with the Service is to stop using it. You acknowledge that you use the Service entirely at your own risk and expense.
9.4 Force Majeure. We shall not be liable for any failure to perform our obligations under these Terms due to causes beyond our reasonable control, including but not limited to acts of God, war, terrorism, epidemics, government actions, or technical failures of third-party services.
10. Privacy and Data Protection
Your privacy is important to us. Our collection and use of your information is governed by our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated into these Terms by reference.
10.1 Cookies and Data Storage
By creating an account and using our Service, you consent to our use of:
- Essential cookies for authentication and session management (provided by Clerk)
- Functional cookies to save your preferences such as sidebar display settings and favorite tools
- Local storage for performance optimization including job history caching and improved loading times
- Privacy-friendly analytics through Vercel Analytics which does not use cookies or collect personal data
These technologies are necessary for the proper functioning of our Service and to provide you with an enhanced user experience. You can manage some of these preferences through your browser settings, though disabling essential cookies may affect Service functionality.
We implement appropriate security measures to protect your data, but you acknowledge that no system is completely secure.
11. Termination
11.1 Termination by You. You may terminate your account at any time by contacting us or using account deletion features in your dashboard. Termination does not relieve you of any obligations incurred prior to termination.
11.2 Termination by Us. We may terminate or suspend your account immediately, with or without notice, if you violate these Terms or our Privacy Policy, engage in conduct harmful to the Service, our users, or our business interests, fail to pay applicable fees (for paid accounts), are inactive for an extended period (we will provide 30 days notice), or request termination through proper channels. We may also terminate accounts for any reason with 30 days advance notice.
11.3 Effect of Termination. Upon termination, your right to use the Service ceases immediately, you must discontinue all use of the Service, we may delete your User Content within 30 days (though we recommend you export your data first), you remain liable for all charges incurred up to termination, and sections of these Terms that by their nature should survive shall remain in effect.
11.4 Data Export. Before termination, you may export your User Content using available export features. We are not obligated to provide data in any specific format or to maintain data after termination.
12. Governing Law and Disputes
PLEASE READ THIS SECTION CAREFULLY. IT AFFECTS YOUR RIGHTS AND DETERMINES HOW CLAIMS BETWEEN YOU AND PROTEINIQ ARE RESOLVED.
12.1 Governing Law. These Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Delaware, United States, without regard to its conflict of law provisions.
12.2 Mandatory Arbitration. Except for disputes involving intellectual property rights or injunctive relief, any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service shall be resolved through final and binding arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association ("AAA") under its Commercial Arbitration Rules. Arbitration will be conducted by a single arbitrator in San Francisco, California (or virtually by mutual agreement). Each party bears its own costs and attorneys' fees. The arbitrator's decision shall be final and binding.
12.3 Class Action Waiver. You agree that disputes will be resolved on an individual basis only. You waive any right to participate in class actions, class arbitrations, or other representative proceedings.
12.4 Opt-Out Right. You may opt out of this arbitration provision by sending written notice within 30 days of first accepting these Terms to legal@proteiniq.io with subject line "Arbitration Opt-Out."
12.5 Jurisdiction. For disputes not subject to arbitration, you agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal and state courts located in San Francisco, California.
13. Changes to Terms
We may update these Terms from time to time at our sole discretion. We will provide notice of material changes by:
- Posting the updated Terms on our website with a new "Last updated" date
- Sending email notification to your registered email address
- Displaying a prominent notice in the Service interface
Material changes will be effective 30 days after notice is provided. Non-material changes are effective immediately upon posting. Your continued use of the Service after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms. If you do not agree to the changes, you must discontinue use of the Service.
14. Export Control and Compliance
14.1 Export Control Laws. The Service and related technology may be subject to U.S. export control laws and regulations. You agree to comply with all applicable export control laws and regulations, including the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) maintained by the U.S. Department of Commerce.
14.2 Sanctions Compliance. You represent that you are not located in, organized in, or a resident of a country subject to U.S. economic sanctions, and that you are not on any U.S. government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
14.3 Research Compliance. If you are using the Service for academic or commercial research, you agree to comply with all applicable research ethics guidelines, obtain necessary institutional approvals (e.g., IRB, IACUC), follow proper citation practices when using our Service in publications, and acknowledge computational limitations in your research publications.
15. Additional Terms for Institutional Users
15.1 Institution Accounts. If you are using the Service on behalf of an educational institution, research organization, or company, you represent that you have authority to bind that entity to these Terms.
15.2 Student and Employee Use. Institutions are responsible for ensuring their students, faculty, and employees comply with these Terms when using accounts provided by the institution.
16. Miscellaneous
16.1 Entire Agreement. These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy and any additional terms for specific features, constitute the entire agreement between you and ProteinIQ regarding the Service and supersede all prior agreements.
16.2 Severability. If any provision of these Terms is held to be invalid, illegal, or unenforceable, the remainder of these Terms shall remain in full force and effect.
16.3 Waiver. Our failure to enforce any right or provision of these Terms will not constitute a waiver of such right or provision.
16.4 Assignment. You may not assign or transfer these Terms or your rights hereunder without our prior written consent. We may assign these Terms without restriction.
16.5 Survival. Provisions that by their nature should survive termination shall survive, including but not limited to intellectual property rights, liability limitations, and dispute resolution provisions.
16.6 Language. These Terms are written in English. Any translated versions are provided for convenience only. In case of conflict, the English version shall prevail.
17. Contact Information
For questions about these Terms, please contact us at:
Email: legal@proteiniq.io
Mailing Address: [Your Business Address]
For general support inquiries, please use our regular support channels rather than our legal contact information.
By using ProteinIQ, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms of Service.