Platform terms of use and privacy

Platform Terms of Use and Privacy

This website (https://www.hscnext.com) (“Platform”) is operated by the HSC Next team at the UNT Health Science Center at Fort Worth (HSC) to facilitate ideation, nurture innovators, manage innovation portfolios, support events, catalyze commercialization and increase the availability of resources that support innovation and entrepreneurship (“Purpose”). These Terms of Use and Privacy (“Terms”) govern your access to and use of this Platform and content that you may upload or share through this Platform. Information shared by you related to specific innovation challenges, invention disclosures, events and the like may be subject to additional terms as indicated elsewhere in the Platform.

Your Use of the Platform

You will use this Platform and its contents solely for the Purpose, and for no other purpose. You shall not:

Abuse, harass, threaten or intimidate other users;
Submit any content that is obscene, abusive, offensive, discriminatory or illegal, or infringes any intellectual property right of any third party (e.g. patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright);
Impersonate another user or person;
Attempt to obtain any password, account information or other personal data from any user;
Submit any unsolicited or unauthorized advertisement, spam or off-topic content or comments, or otherwise promote your business or solicit business;
Introduce any bugs, worms or viruses, perform any unauthorized act or otherwise tamper or interfere with the functioning of this Platform in any way whatsoever; or
Share your credentials with any other person.

Disclaimer; Limitation of Liability

This Platform is provided “as-is” and “as available”. To the fullest extent permitted by law, HSC gives no express or implied representation or warranty in respect of this Platform or its content (including, without limitation, as to their accuracy, quality, performance, fitness for purpose, non-infringement or that it is up to date) and all such representations and warranties are excluded. HSC cannot guarantee that this Platform will be free from errors or bugs. HSC assumes no responsibility for any loss or damage in respect of this Platform or its content and so disclaims all liability accordingly. You expressly acknowledge that your use of this Platform at your own and exclusive risk.

Our liability to you in connection with this Platform (whether arising from negligence, breach of contract or otherwise) is only to take such actions as are reasonably required (in our sole discretion) to delete, or correct the relevant data.

Any disclaimers or limitations of liability on this Platform shall apply to the fullest extent permitted by law. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits our liability for fraud, fraudulent misrepresentation or for death or personal injury arising from our negligence or any other liability that cannot be excluded or restricted by applicable laws.

Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold HSC, the University of North Texas System, its board of regents, employees, and agents harmless from any claim, damage, liability, injury, loss, or expense or loss (including attorneys’ fees) incurred by them due to or arising out of your use of this Platform.

Privacy

We use browser detection to determine the browser type, browser version, and operating system of site visitors. This information is used only in its aggregate form, to help us further refine Platform design. The remote ip address is collected from each site visitor, and is used only to provide statistical data, specifically, the percentage of “hits” from the HSC Next domain versus the number from the internet. The pages accessed by each visitor are recorded and preserved in an aggregate form to provide us with information about the relative usage of Platform pages. The web page that referred the site visitor to the Platform is also recorded and used to improve overall site navigation.

Email messages sent to us via the Contact form on the Platform or to hello@hscnext.com will be answered by personnel on the HSC Next team or forwarded to another individual to be answered. Email messages sent and copies of replies may be kept and reviewed to help ensure the relevance of information presented in this site and the usefulness of our response system. Email messages sent to other email contacts, such as those on the HSC Next Team page will be answered by that account holder or their designee. All programmatic email messages including visitors’ names, email addresses or other information provided by the user are transmitted using Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption.

Forms collecting such data for specific purposes such as the creation of an HSC Next profile also use SSL encryption. The data collected in such forms are used exclusively for the Purpose of this website and retained according to state approved records retention schedules.

This Platform uses Google Analytics; a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. Google Analytics uses cookies to collect information such as URLs, Internet domain and host names, browser software, and the date and time that the user visits the site. This information is used to monitor the effectiveness of the website and to consider potential improvements to the website. The information is non-personal and is transmitted to and stored by Google on its servers. HSC does not share any specific information about a particular user.

Please visit the following pages for more information on Google Analytics terms of use and Google's privacy practices. To opt out of Google’s data collection, read more about the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on.

We may collect information about your visits for remarketing purposes. As always, we respect your privacy and are not collecting any identifiable information through the use of Google’s or any other 3rd party remarketing system.

Accessibility

This Platform meets the statutory requirements in Texas Administrative Code 206.70 Accessibility Standards (TAC 206.70), which references the U.S. Section 508 standards. Questions about accessibility can be addressed to webmaster@unthsc.edu.

Links

The Platform contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of any other site that collects personally identifiable information.

For more information about what we may and may not collect or even disclose, please reference the Texas Business and Commerce Code Sec. 501.052. Should you have questions or concerns about our privacy policy, please contact the HSC webmaster (webmaster@unthsc.edu).

General

Your use of this resource constitutes an explicit binding agreement to abide by relevant federal and state laws and HSC policies. Unauthorized use of this system is prohibited.

HSC reserves the right to remove any content which violates these Terms, to suspend or cancel your access rights, or to close this Platform at any time without notice.

These Terms shall be governed by the laws of the State of Texas. Venue for any action arising out of the Terms or your use of the Platform shall be in a court of competent jurisdiction in Tarrant County, Texas.

Nothing in these Terms shall be deemed or treated as any waiver of HSC’s sovereign immunity.

Contact

In case of any question, please contact us at hello@hscnext.com.

This page was last modified on May 10, 2021