Security

If you intend to file a patent application, you should ensure that the details of the technology are kept confidential, at least until after the application has been filed. We recommend taking precautions to prevent unauthorised access to your confidential information, particularly in the sensitive early phase before filing. We can help you by ensuring that documents, drawings and emails are kept as secure as possible. To this end, we can offer you the option of using encrypted email for sensitive communications, using strong PGP encryption, and your access to your online portal is protected by proven SSL security.

Email Security

For communicating sensitive information by email, we recommend using PGP encryption. Our public key can be downloaded from here or copied from the bottom of this page. You will need to provide us with a public key so that we can encrypt emails which we send to you. If you need help in setting up PGP encryption on your computer, we can help you. It just takes a few minutes, depending on what system you use. Please just ask. Of course we can also communicate with you by unencrypted email in the normal way, or even by post.

Secure Online Portal

Our client portal, which gives you online access to the documents for your patent cases, is protected by secure socket level (SSL) security. This is the proven security technology which is used for banking and online commerce worldwide.

Document Security

We operate a paperless docketing system, hosted remotely on highly secure European servers with dual redundancy and using multiple RAID arrays. Backups are encrypted and stored in yet another separate location. The chances of data loss are significantly lower than the chances of traditional paper files being stolen or destroyed by fire.

Disclaimer

While PGP and SSL security are in themselves secure communication channels, their effectiveness is only assured as long as you keep your security information (private PGP key, passwords etc) secret. Furthermore, it is possible that certain national security agencies may have backdoor access to some operating systems and/or encryption algorithms.