Terms of Service

1. Agreement and eligibility

These Terms of Service form an agreement between you and SeqBench and apply to the website, workbench, programmatic interfaces, accounts and related services (together, the “Service”). The Privacy Policy explains how information is handled.

You must be legally capable of entering into this agreement. If you use the Service on behalf of an organisation, you confirm that you have authority to bind that organisation and permission to submit the information you provide.

2. The Service

SeqBench provides bioinformatics tools for sequence inspection, design, comparison, annotation, cloning simulation, editing workflows and result verification. Capabilities may be available through interactive pages, batch workflows or documented programmatic access.

Some calculations are deterministic; others depend on reference data, external sources, scientific assumptions or predictive models and may change as those inputs develop. Tool descriptions and result notes form part of the context in which an output must be interpreted.

3. Use for any purpose

You may use the Service, and the results it produces, for any lawful purpose, including commercial and industrial work, without a licence fee or permission from us.

Outputs are not professional scientific, medical, regulatory or legal advice. You are responsible for reviewing the inputs, assumptions and limitations and for independently verifying any result before using it in an experiment, publication, submission or other consequential decision.

4. Accounts

An account is optional for the core Service. If you create one, you must provide accurate information, keep access to the account secure and promptly notify us if you believe it has been used without permission. You are responsible for activity carried out through your account unless applicable law provides otherwise.

We may suspend or restrict an account where reasonably necessary to protect the Service or its users, investigate suspected misuse, comply with law or enforce these terms. You may request account deletion by contacting us.

5. Your data and results

You retain any rights you hold in sequences, files and other material submitted to the Service, as well as in results generated from that material. We do not claim ownership of user-submitted data or tool output.

You give us a limited permission to process submitted material only as needed to operate, secure and improve the Service, provide features you request and comply with law. The Privacy Policy describes which operations remain on your device, which require connected processing, and the limited circumstances in which data may be retained.

You are responsible for ensuring that you have the rights, permissions and lawful basis needed to submit any data relating to another person, organisation or research project.

6. Acceptable use

You must not use the Service to:

• violate applicable law or design or analyse sequences intended for bioweapons, pathogens of concern or other unlawful or harmful biological applications;
• gain unauthorised access, probe security controls, introduce malicious code, evade usage limits or interfere with operation;
• send automated or bulk traffic that disregards documented limits or unreasonably degrades the Service for others;
• copy or resell the Service itself, as opposed to using it and its results; or
• mislead another person about the source, reliability or intended use of a result.

We may throttle, block or otherwise restrict activity that we reasonably believe threatens the stability, security, lawful use or integrity of the Service.

7. Intellectual property

The SeqBench name, branding, website design, documentation and underlying software are owned by us or our licensors and are protected by applicable intellectual-property laws. Subject to these terms, you receive a non-exclusive right to access and use the Service for any lawful purpose.

Nothing in these terms prevents you from using or sharing your own inputs and outputs. It does not grant a right to reproduce the Service, remove ownership notices, imply endorsement or use our branding in a way likely to cause confusion.

8. Third-party resources

Some tools retrieve information from public databases or depend on third-party scientific resources. Those sources may change, become unavailable or impose their own terms. We are not responsible for their accuracy, availability or continued operation.

Links to external resources are provided for context and convenience; they do not imply endorsement. You are responsible for reviewing the terms, licences and citation requirements that apply to data or material obtained from an external source.

9. Availability and changes

We work to keep the Service reliable and useful, but do not promise uninterrupted access, permanent availability of a feature or that every error will be corrected. Maintenance, security events, external dependencies and circumstances outside our control may affect service.

We may add, modify, limit, suspend or discontinue features. We may also update these terms to reflect changes in the Service, law or our practices. The effective date above identifies the current version; material changes will be accompanied by reasonable notice where appropriate.

10. Donations

Donations are voluntary and are not a purchase of goods or services. A donation does not create a subscription or entitle you to any feature, level of service or support. Early access to features in beta is offered to donors as a thank-you, at our discretion, and its timing and scope may change.

Payments are processed by a third-party payment processor under its own terms. If you donated by mistake, contact us promptly and we will consider a refund.

11. Disclaimers and limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Service is provided “as is” and “as available,” without warranties of accuracy, reliability, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement or uninterrupted availability. A result may contain errors, omit relevant factors or be unsuitable for your intended use.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, SeqBench and its operators are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive loss, or for loss arising from reliance on an output contrary to these terms. Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability or statutory rights that cannot lawfully be excluded.

12. General terms

If a provision of these terms is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue in effect. A delay in enforcing a right is not a waiver. You may not transfer this agreement without our consent; we may transfer it as part of a reorganisation, financing, acquisition or sale.

These terms are governed by the laws applicable in the jurisdiction in which SeqBench operates, without regard to conflict-of-law rules, except where mandatory local law provides otherwise. Any mandatory consumer rights or forum protections available to you remain unaffected.

13. Contact

Questions about these terms, an account or permitted use can be sent to seqbench.bio@gmail.com. Please include enough information to identify the issue, but do not include sequence data or confidential project material unless we ask for it.