How we handleyour data.

1. Who is responsible for your data

The controller of your personal data is BazaarLink Co., Ltd. (集聯科技有限公司).

You can reach us about this policy at [email protected] or through the contact page.

2. Information we collect

We collect the following personal data.

Account data: your email address; your password (stored only as a hash); an optional display name; the Google account identifier if you sign in with Google; your language preference; and, if you turn it on, a two-factor authentication secret (encrypted) and recovery-code hashes.

Sign-up and sign-in data: the IP address and country at sign-up and at your latest sign-in, device type and referral-source category, and sign-in events (email, IP address, country and browser user-agent). We also record rejected sign-ups (a hash of the email, the IP address and the network operator) to prevent abuse.

Usage data: the status and timestamps of the lookups and Office Action jobs you submit; balance, credit and usage records; and aggregate tool-use measurements with a fixed set of options and no document text. For anonymous patent PDF downloads we keep a keyed hash of the IP address; for sign-up credits we keep a hashed IP address and the domain of your email, to prevent repeated claims.

API usage: if you use the API, a record of each request: when it was made, which of your keys made it, the endpoint, the result status or error code, what it charged and the job it relates to, and the size of the request. We do not record the key itself or the content of the files you send.

Payment data: our third-party payment service provider collects your payment details directly. We receive your email address, the amount and status of each payment, and, for saved cards, the card brand and last four digits. We do not receive full card numbers.

Contact messages: your name, email, optional company, subject, message, IP address and browser user-agent.

Document content you provide: the Office Action files you upload and the patent numbers you enter (see section 3).

Site measurements: a first-party visit counter that uses a daily keyed hash of the IP address and user-agent and sets no cookie, and a third-party web analytics service that sets no cookie (see section 8).

Survey answers: if you choose to answer our user survey, your answers, including anything you write in the free-text fields, and whether you are willing to be interviewed.

3. How we handle document content

An Office Action you upload, and artifacts generated while processing it (extracted text, citation results, patent versions and the OA package), are held in temporary cloud storage to complete the job and allow version changes and repeat downloads.

The input and available results can be accessed for up to 24 hours within the same job; for a batch of patent numbers, up to 48 hours. Downloading a file does not end this access window. After expiry, access is disabled and temporary storage is cleared by scheduled cleanup. Failed-job files are cleared.

We do not keep a retrievable case-document library. Once you download a package, keep it in your own system.

While a job is processing, the Office Action is sent to the document text-recognition service, and its text to the language-model service we use to extract and resolve citations (see section 6, "Data sharing and sub-processors"). We have turned on the zero-data-retention and no-training options with both providers; under their terms, the content is not retained after processing and is not used to train models.

4. How we use this information

To provide the service itself: lookups, Office Action parsing, and document package generation.

To manage your account, sign-in state, and session security.

To meter and bill usage against your balance, pay-as-you-go charges, and monthly plan.

To run routine security controls such as rate limiting, sign-in logging, and anomaly detection.

To respond to questions you send through the contact form.

To send you occasional product update emails about DownloadPatent, such as new features and changes to the service. To understand how these emails perform, we record when you first follow a DownloadPatent link in each one. The emails contain no hidden image or other means of detecting when you open them. These records do not include which link you clicked, how many times, or your IP address. Every such email has a one-click unsubscribe link, and you can also turn them off in account settings. You can also choose not to receive them when you sign up. We never send them to unverified addresses.

If you choose to answer our user survey, we use your answers to improve the product, give you the promotional credit, and, if you say you are willing to be interviewed, contact you at your account email. The survey is optional. We do not publish your answers or use them for marketing.

We do not use your data for purposes beyond those listed above, and we do not sell your personal data.

5. Data retention

Document content (uploaded Office Actions and generated files): available for up to 24 hours to support version changes and repeat downloads within the same job. The files of a batch of patent numbers are available for up to 48 hours. After expiry, access is disabled and temporary storage is cleared by scheduled cleanup. Failed-job files are cleared. Documents are never kept as a case-document library. Before sign-in, a selected input can be restored from this browser for 30 minutes; it remains available for returning to the input and is removed when expired input is next checked.

Public patent PDFs: public patent PDFs you download are stored in a shared cache under their patent number for up to 90 days, so that any user can retrieve them again. This includes a full-text version that stands in for a publication without its own (kept under its own number, with a note of which number it stands in for) and files whose number we could not confirm (marked as such, and checked again when someone asks for them after a day). Results of patent family lookups are kept the same way for up to 90 days. The cache does not record who downloaded a file, and other users cannot see which numbers you looked up. Office Actions you upload are still kept for up to 24 hours.

Job metadata (status, input summary, result manifest, timestamps, and error codes): retained for as long as your account exists, as a service and billing record.

Usage events, balance and credit records, and audit records: retained for as long as your account exists.

API request records: deleted after 180 days by a daily cleanup.

Sign-in logs, and the IP addresses stored with your account (at sign-up and at your last sign-in), with your contact messages (together with the browser user-agent) and with rejected sign-up records: deleted or cleared after 180 days by a daily cleanup. Hashed IP address records for anonymous patent PDF downloads are kept for 30 days.

Product update emails: for each email we keep the recipient address, language, and whether it was sent, delivered, bounced, or reported as spam, and when you first clicked a link in it, for as long as your account exists. Emails sent on or before November 3, 2026 may also have a record of when you first opened them; emails sent after that do not record opens. When you delete your account these records are deleted. If an address bounced permanently or reported our email as spam, we keep only an irreversible hash of that address so we never email it again.

When you delete your account, we immediately erase your email address, name, IP addresses, sign-in methods, sign-in history, saved payment methods, and contact messages sent from the same email address. Payment and billing records (amounts, dates, and the payment provider's order numbers) are kept as tax and accounting law requires, for up to 10 years after the end of the financial year; these records and usage statistics that contain no content are linked only to a random account number and no longer contain your contact details. To prevent the sign-up credit from being claimed twice, we keep an irreversible hash of your email address.

Survey answers are kept while your account exists and are deleted when you delete your account. To prevent the survey credit from being claimed twice, we keep an irreversible hash of your email address.

6. Data sharing and sub-processors

We share information only with the following categories of service providers, and only to the extent needed to provide the service:

Cloud hosting, database and file storage (Taiwan region).

Network delivery, country detection, bot protection and cookie-free website analytics.

Document text recognition and AI language-model services.

Email delivery.

Third-party sign-in (when you sign in with a Google account).

Payment processing; we do not store your full card number.

Network operator lookup: we may look up the network operator of the IP address used at sign-up to detect abuse.

Internal operations notifications containing an account identifier, country, language, source and amount, but no email address or IP address.

Patent offices and patent databases receive the patent numbers you look up, to retrieve patent documents.

For a complete list of our service providers, write to [email protected].

We have turned on the zero-data-retention and no-training options in the settings of our text-recognition and language-model providers; under those providers' terms, content they process is not retained and is not used to train models.

We do not sell your personal data to third parties, and we do not share it with anyone for their own marketing.

7. Cross-border transfers

Our servers, database, and file storage are all located in asia-east1 (Taiwan).

When we query official patent sources abroad, some outbound connections are relayed through other regions (for example asia-northeast1). That is only the exit location of the connection, not a location where we store your data.

Some of the service providers listed in section 6 process data outside Taiwan: document text recognition, language-model processing, email delivery, Google sign-in, bot protection and website analytics, and payment processing. Patent offices and patent databases abroad receive the patent numbers you look up.

Under Article 21 of Taiwan's Personal Data Protection Act, the competent authority may restrict the international transfer of personal data in specified circumstances. No such restriction currently applies to the transfers described here; we will update this page if that changes.

Personal data of people in the EEA and the UK may be processed by the providers in the categories listed in section 6 in countries outside the EEA and the UK, including Taiwan and the United States.

8. Cookies and tracking

We use only the cookies needed to run the service, plus the optional source-code cookie described below. The cookies we set are:

dp_session: keeps you signed in; 7 days; strictly necessary.

dp_mfa_intent: carries a sign-in through the second step; 5 minutes; strictly necessary.

dp_google_link and ipdesk_oauth_state: complete a Google sign-in or link; 10 minutes; strictly necessary.

ipdesk_locale: remembers your language; 1 year.

dp_consent: remembers your cookie choice; 1 year.

first_touch: the optional source-code cookie; 30 days; set only with consent in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland.

dp_anon_dl: optional; records only that this browser has downloaded a patent without an account (no patent number or IP address), so that when you sign up we can count how many people signed up after a download; 30 days; like first_touch, set only with consent in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, and deleted when you choose Reject.

A load-balancing cookie set by our hosting provider so your requests reach the same server; strictly necessary.

We set a cookie that records only where you came from, such as a promotional link or a referring website. It stores only the source code and the type of referring website (for example LINE or Google), contains no personal information, and expires after 30 days. When you sign up, we record this code, the type of referring website, and your country and device type at the time of sign-up on your account, to understand where our users come from. If you visit from the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, we set this cookie only after you choose Accept in the banner shown on your first visit. Choosing Reject sets no such cookie, and any that already exists is deleted. Your choice is remembered for one year in a cookie named dp_consent, which is needed only to remember that choice, and you can change it at any time with "Cookie settings" in the page footer. Visitors elsewhere are not shown the banner.

To understand overall traffic on our website, we use Cloudflare Web Analytics, which Cloudflare adds to our pages automatically. It does not set cookies and does not build a profile of you; it records aggregate information such as the page path, the referring website, country, device type and browser, and it does not record the query string of a URL.

We also count visits with a first-party counter that sets no cookie and does not store your IP address (it uses a daily keyed hash) and that respects the Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control signals. It runs before you make a cookie choice.

We do not use advertising or cross-site tracking.

9. Security

Sign-in credentials expire after 7 days.

Passwords must be at least 8 characters long.

Sign-up, verification-email resend, email verification, password confirmation and reset requests, and the contact form are all rate-limited by IP address or account; failed sign-in attempts are rate-limited as well.

Sign-up, verification-email resend, and password-reset requests also pass an automated bot check (Cloudflare Turnstile) before any email is sent.

Successful, failed, and blocked sign-in attempts are logged, and kept separately from other audit records.

See the information security page for details.

10. Your rights

Under Taiwan's Personal Data Protection Act, you have the following rights regarding the personal data we hold about you: to inquire about or request access to it, to request a copy, to request supplementation or correction, to request that we stop collecting, processing, or using it, and to request its deletion.

You can delete your account yourself from the account settings page. Once deleted, the account can no longer be used to sign in or to spend any remaining balance (see the refund policy for how remaining balance is handled). Deleting the account also cancels any active subscription and erases your personal data as described in section 5. Our payment provider, Dodo Payments, keeps payment data itself as the merchant of record; to have that data deleted, contact Dodo Payments directly.

We do not currently offer a self-service "export my data" flow. To exercise your rights of access, copy, supplementation or correction, or to ask us to stop processing your data, submit the request through the contact page and we will act on it once we have verified your identity.

11. If you are in the EEA, the UK or Switzerland

Legal bases. We process your data to perform our contract with you (your account, documents, payments and subscription), for our legitimate interests (security, abuse and fraud prevention, aggregated usage measurement, improving the service, and telling existing users about changes and new features in the service), to meet legal obligations (accounting, tax and sanctions compliance), and on your consent where we ask for it (non-essential cookies such as the source-code cookie).

Your rights. You have the right to access your data, to have it corrected or erased, to restrict its processing, to receive it in a portable format, to object to processing based on our legitimate interests, and to withdraw consent at any time. We do not have a self-service export yet; send the request through the contact page. You may also lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority. You can object to product update emails at any time, free of charge, by using the unsubscribe link in any of them or the switch in account settings.

Transfers. Some of the providers in the categories listed in section 6 process data outside the EEA and the UK. Where there is no adequacy decision, we rely on the EU standard contractual clauses (SCCs) incorporated in our service providers' data processing agreements, or on our providers' certification under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, as the basis for the transfer.

We do not make decisions with legal effects about you solely by automated means.

12. Children and minors

The Service is for professionals aged 18 or over. We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 18; if we learn that we have, we delete it.

If you believe a child's personal data has been collected through this service, contact us through the contact page and we will help address and delete it.

13. Changes to this policy

We may revise this policy from time to time. For material changes, we will give advance notice on this page or through another appropriate channel.

Continuing to use the service after a change takes effect means you agree to the revised policy.

14. Business transfers

If the service is involved in a merger, acquisition, reorganization, or transfer of assets, your personal data may transfer to the acquiring party as part of that transaction.

We will require the acquiring party to honor obligations equivalent to those in this policy.

15. Third-party sites

The service may include links to third-party sites, such as national patent offices or government databases.

The privacy practices of those third-party sites are their own responsibility and are not covered by this policy; review their policies before use.