PRIVACY POLICY

HOUSTON INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW ASSOCIATION

Effective Date: March 31, 2023

Please click here for a printable PDF version of this notice.

This Privacy Policy describes how the Houston Intellectual Property Law Association (“we” or “HIPLA”) collects, uses, shares and protects information when you interact with our main website www.hipla.org, as well as all of our websites, emails we send, social media accounts, and online services (our “Services”). This Privacy Policy explains the following:

·         How we collect information and the types of information we collect

·         How we use cookies and other tracking technologies 

·         How we use your information 

·         How we use share your information

·         How we protect and store your information

·         Your privacy options

·         Children's information

·         Updates to this Privacy Policy

Please note that this Privacy Policy does not apply to non-HIPLA websites or services. Please review the privacy policies on those websites and applications directly to understand their privacy practices.

For questions about our privacy practices, contact us at: hipla.sec@gmail.com or write to us at:

Houston Intellectual Property Law Association

c/o Eubanks PLLC

12777 Jones Rd.

Suite 465

Houston, Texas 77070

1.       How We Collect Information

We may collect information about you by the following means:

·         Directly from you, when you provide information to us or interact with us; and

·         Automatically from you, when you utilize or interact with our Services;

2.       Information We Collect

In order to better provide you with our Services, we may collect the following categories of information:

•   Contact information and any other information you choose to include when you communicate with us via e-mail, mail, phone or other channels;
•   Profile and subscription information, such as a username and password, your name, mailing address, e-mail address, phone number, and usage and subscription preferences, which may include signing up to some of our Services or communications from us;

·        Transactional information including payment information and payment history if you engage in transactions through the Services;

·        Device information when you utilize our technology platforms, including as model, serial number, device location, usage data, and operating information;

·        Survey information in response to questions we may send you through the Services, including for feedback and research purposes;

·        User Content you may provide to publicly post via the Services (e.g., comments); and

·        Online User Activity described in the next section.

Some of this information may be collected by external parties on our behalf. For example, we use a payment processor when you engage in a transaction on our website; HIPLA does not itself collect or store payment card information.

3.       Online User Activity, Cookies and Information Collected by Other Automated Means

When you interact with the Services, certain information about your use of our Services is automatically collected. This includes:

·         Usage Details about your interaction with our Services (such as the date, time, and length of visits, and specific pages or content accessed during the visits, search terms, frequency of the visits, and referring website addresses);

·         Device Information including the IP address and other details of a device that you use to connect with our Services (such as device type and unique device identifier, operating system, browser type, mobile network information, and the device's telephone number); and

·         Location information where you choose to provide the website with access to information about your device’s location.

Much of this information is collected through cookies operated by our partners who assist us. For example, we use Google Analytics to conduct analytics and to collect information about usage of the Services, such as how often you visit the Services, what pages or features of the Services you use, and what other websites you visited prior to accessing the Services. You can learn more about privacy and Google Analytics here. You may prevent your data from being collected and used by Google Analytics by opting out through the use of the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.

Please note we may use other cookies for the above-described purposes. You may be able to opt out of tracking by cookies or control how information is collected by cookies via a number of means, as described in Your Privacy Options.

4.       How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect from you for the following purposes:

·         Provide our Services to you, including to maintain your account, manage any purchases or transactions, and provide other important notices;

·         Respond to your requests, questions and comments and provide support;

·         Monitor the performance of our Services including metrics such as total number of visitors, traffic, and demographic patterns;

·         Interact with you, including to notify you regarding events, services, and promotions that may be of interest to you and inform you about important changes to this Privacy Policy, or other policies;

·         Offer events and services that we believe may be of interest to you;

·         Manage, operate, and improve the Services and grow our organization, including understanding our member base and the effectiveness of our marketing, events, promotional campaigns, and publications, and diagnose or fix technology problems; and

·         Comply with legal requirements and industry standards, detect, investigate, and prevent activities that may violate our policies or be fraudulent or illegal, and protect the rights of HIPLA, you, or others.

We may use and share information in an aggregated or de-identified manner data at our discretion, including for research, analysis, modeling, marketing, and improvement of our Services.

5.       How We Share Your Information

·         Service Providers. We may share your information with service providers that we believe need the information to perform a technology, business, or other professional function for us such as billing and collection, IT services, maintenance and hosting of our Services, payment processors, marketing partners, accounting, auditing, and tax services, and other professional services.

·         Analytics. We partner with analytics providers, who collect information via tracking technologies on our Services to assist us with measuring visits and traffic on our Services so we can measure and improve the performance of the Services.

·         Social Media. If you interact with us on social media platforms, the platform may be able to collect information about you and your interaction with us. If you interact with social media objects on our Services (for example, by clicking on a Facebook “like” button), both the platform and your connections on the platform may be able to view that activity. To control this sharing of information, please review the privacy policy of the relevant social media platform.

·         Legal. We share information where necessary to comply with applicable law, to respond to requests from law enforcement agencies or other government authorities or third-parties, as permitted by law and without your consent when it is necessary to protect our customers, employees, or property; in emergency situations; or to enforce our rights under our terms of service and policies.

·         As part of a business transaction with another entity or its affiliates or service providers in connection with a contemplated or actual merger, acquisition, consolidation, change of control, or sale of all or a portion of our assets, or if we undergo bankruptcy or liquidation. We cannot promise that an acquiring party or the merged entity will have the same privacy practices or treat your information the same as described in this Privacy Policy.

6.       How We Protect and Store Your Information

We use a combination of physical, technical, and administrative safeguards to protect the information we collect through the Services. While we use these precautions to safeguard your information, we cannot guarantee the security of the networks, systems, servers, devices, and databases we operate or that are operated on our behalf.

If you use our Services outside of the United States, you understand that we may collect, process, and store your personal information in the United States and other countries.

7.       Your Privacy Options

You may have certain choices when it comes to how we collect and use your information:

·         Update and View Your Account Information. You can access your HIPLA account to update and view your information associated with your account.

·         Unsubscribe from Email Marketing. If at any time you no longer wish to receive marketing communications from us, you can click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any email.

·         Change Your Cookie Preferences. You have several options to either prevent or limit our collection of information regarding your online activity:

o   You may be able to set preferences or block tracking across the internet by particular third parties by interacting directly with the third parties who conduct tracking through our Services by following the links in Online User Activity, Cookies and Information Collected by Other Automated Means.

o   Your browser or device may include “Do Not Track” functionality. Because definitions and rules for a “Do Not Track” standard have not yet been established, including whether such signals must be user-enabled, we do not yet respond to “Do Not Track” signals sent from browsers.

8.       Children’s Information

We do not knowingly or intentionally gather Personal information about children who are under the age of 13. 

9.       Other Countries

Your personal information is processed in the United States, where privacy laws may be less stringent than the laws in your country and where government, courts, or law enforcement may be able to access your data. By submitting personal information to us, you agree to the transfer, storage and processing of your personal information in the United States.

10.   Updates to This Privacy Policy

We may make changes to this Privacy Policy from time to time. The “Effective Date” at the top of this page indicates when this Privacy Policy was last revised. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the collection, use, and disclosure of your personal information described in this Privacy Policy.