The Company

IP-Safe ApS (IPS) offer administration within Intellectual Property.

The following Standard Terms of Business apply in general to all assignments handled by IPS. Agreements can be made that differ from the Standard Terms of Business and such other agreement must be made in writing.

Cooperating with IPS

It is our general policy when receiving an assignment to send (i) a short-written confirmation of the acceptance of the assignment, (ii) a short description of the scope of the work, (iii) the delivery time and (iv) our best estimate of the costs of the assignment. The estimated costs may change if the scope of the work and/or the requested services is redefined or if the assignment show to be more complicated than expected.

If an estimated cost seems to change due to a more complicated nature of the assignment, we will contact you before 80% of the estimated costs is reached to discuss this. In urgent matters, the above confirmation (i)-(iv) may be omitted.

If nothing else is stated, the estimated cost and other costs provided are without VAT and VAT needs to be added to the costs according to applicable rules.

Customers in EU countries outside Denmark must provide us with a valid VAT number in order to receive invoices without VAT. Otherwise, we are obliged to charge VAT due to EU legislation.

No VAT will be charged on invoices to customers outside the EU.

IPS will monitor any time limits in your portfolio handled by us in our systems, given by regional and national authorities, and, if relevant, we will in due course apply for extensions of time limits, if possible.

Often, your assistance to observe a time limit is needed and you must therefore provide us with all relevant information in due time. Consequently, if we do not receive your instructions and/or relevant information in time to enable us to meet the time limit, we cannot accept liability for any resulting loss of rights or a change in the estimated cost.

IPS may represent you directly at the European Patent Office, the Danish Patent Office, WIPO, EUIPO and the Norwegian Patent Office. At other offices around the world, we work through local patent attorneys. Our cooperation with the local attorneys on your behalf is always built on good faith, but we cannot accept liability for any failure on their behalf.

Payment terms

All services performed by IPS are chargeable. Unless otherwise agreed, we charge you for our services. Generally, we charge on an hourly basis at standard rates or on a fixed price which has been agreed on in advance, unless otherwise agreed. We also invoice you all the out-of-pocket expenses, e.g. official fees and invoices from local patent attorneys, travel expenses and administrative fees. These out-of-pocket expenses are subject to an additional conversion rate when working in currencies different from Danish Kroner (DKK).

Our invoices for ongoing services will be sent on a monthly basis, or when we have completed the assignment, whichever is more appropriate.

Invoices must generally be settled within 14 days from the date of the invoice, unless special agreements have been made.

Please note that interest will be charged at a rate of 2% per month for late payments.

If you fail to settle outstanding invoices, a first reminder will be sent.

A second reminder will be subject to an additional fee of 500 DKK and will be sent about 10 days from the date of the first reminder.

If still not settled after receiving the second reminder, the invoice will be sent to debt collection (inkasso) and an additional fee of 2500 DKK is added to the invoice for the work involved and the costs for the debt collection is put on the debtor.

If you do not settle your invoices duly and if you fail to enter into an agreement with us concerning payment, we reserve the rights to defer providing additional services to you or to discontinue our services to you.

In some assignments, we may request a down payment before we perform the services in question. This always applies if the services in question require heavy out-of-pocket expenses.

Conflict of Interest

In accordance with the rules of The Institute of Professional Representatives before the European Patent Office and company procedures, IPS will check for conflict of interest before we accept and undertake an assignment.

In case of a possible conflict of interest, we maintain the right to terminate our services to you within due notice.

You are under an obligation to keep us informed of any potential conflict of interest that may arise and comes to your attention. For our part, we always seek to have attention on any matter that could have a negative effect on our competence to act on your behalf.

Secrecy and Confidentiality

All employees at IPS are subject to strict professional secrecy. Such duty of confidentiality also applies after completion of the assignment. Any information from or regarding clients which we receive in connection with an assignment is treated as confidential, unless it appears from the circumstances that the information is non-confidential.

Termination of the Cooperation

If the cooperation between you and IPS is terminated, it is normally our policy to send you all official files of your cases free of charge. We do not retain any official copies.

Insurance and Limitation of Liability

The general Danish law of damages shall be applicable, provided always that IPS shall not be liable for business interruption, loss of profits or other indirect losses suffered by you.

IPS have an insurance covering any professional liability in damages in connection with the handling of your cases. Upon request and within a reasonable time, as our client, you will be entitled to see the liability insurance policy taken out.

Governing Law and Venue

Any interpretation of these Standard Terms of Business shall be construed in accordance with the general principles of Danish law.

Any insoluble disputes arising between you and IPS in connection with the interpretation of the Standard Terms of Business shall be settled in accordance with the provisions of the Danish Act on Administration of Justice, if possible, with the Copenhagen City Court as venue.

If you have questions to any of the Business Terms, please contact us.

We look forward to cooperating with you.