Effective date: August 15, 2026

Terms of Service

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) govern your use of Universally Thinking websites and the public ideas community at universallythinking.com (the “Services”), operated by Universally Thinking (“we,” “us,” or “our”).

By creating an account, posting content, or using the Services, you agree to these Terms and our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Services.

Important: Universally Thinking is a public discussion and historical-record platform. It is not a patent office, law firm, or substitute for a patent application. Publishing an idea here is a public disclosure and can harm your ability to obtain patent protection, especially outside the United States. Read Section 4 before you post.

1. Eligibility and accounts

You must be at least 13 years old. If you are under 18, you may use the Services only with a parent or guardian’s involvement. You are responsible for your account, password, and all activity under your gamertag. Provide accurate information and keep it updated. You may delete your account at any time in Settings, which removes hosted account data as described in the Privacy Policy.

We may refuse, suspend, or terminate accounts, including trial accounts, at our discretion, including for policy violations or to protect the Services.

2. Membership, trial ideas, and whitelist

New users may submit one trial idea. Additional posting may require our approval as a member, unless we have whitelisted you (including via an invite link such as #whitelist). Approval, rejection, or whitelist status does not create any promise of patent protection, commercial success, confidentiality, or endorsement. We may change membership rules.

3. Your content and license

You retain whatever intellectual-property rights you already have in content you post (“User Content”), including ideas, text, and images. You represent that you have the right to post it and that it does not infringe others’ rights.

By posting User Content, you grant Universally Thinking a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sublicensable license to host, store, reproduce, publish, display, distribute, index, and otherwise use that User Content in connection with operating, promoting, and improving the Services, including creating a public historical record. This license lasts for as long as the content is hosted or as needed for backups, legal compliance, and residual copies that cannot reasonably be retrieved.

You also grant other users a limited right to view, discuss, comment on, and share links to your public posts as enabled by the Services. We do not claim ownership of your inventions merely because you posted them here.

4. Public disclosure; no patent; no legal advice

Posting on Universally Thinking is a public disclosure. Anyone may see what you publish. We do not keep posted ideas confidential.

We do not grant patents, register inventions, or give you exclusive ownership of an idea by hosting it. A dated public record is not the same as a patent, copyright registration (except to the extent copyright automatically exists in original expression), trademark, trade-secret protection, or an attorney-client relationship.

Public disclosure can:

destroy trade-secret protection in the disclosed information;
count as prior art against later patent claims, including claims by you or others;
start or affect grace periods (in the United States, certain inventor-originated disclosures may be eligible for a limited one-year grace period under U.S. patent law, depending on the facts); and
bar patent rights in many countries that require absolute novelty and do not recognize a comparable grace period.

If you believe an invention may have commercial value, consult a licensed patent attorney or patent agent before posting. We do not provide legal, patent, or professional advice. Nothing on the Services is a legal opinion. Patent rules are technical and fact-specific; we do not warrant that a post will establish priority, prove inventorship, or be accepted as prior art in any proceeding.

We do not guarantee that timestamps, servers, or records will be admissible evidence, complete, unaltered, or available forever.

5. No confidential submissions

Do not send us confidential inventions expecting secrecy. Unsolicited ideas and all User Content are treated as non-confidential. We may already be working on similar concepts, and we have no duty to compensate you, credit you, or avoid developing competing products unless we enter a separate written agreement signed by us.

6. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

post content you do not have the right to publish, including others’ trade secrets or confidential information;
impersonate others, misrepresent inventorship, or engage in fraud;
post illegal content, malware, or content that exploits or endangers minors;
harass, threaten, or abuse others;
spam, scrape in an abusive way, or overload the Services;
attempt to access others’ accounts or non-public systems; or
use the Services to provide regulated legal services or to imply we verified, patented, or endorsed an idea.

We may remove content or restrict accounts that violate these Terms or that we reasonably believe create legal, safety, or operational risk.

7. Intellectual property of Universally Thinking

The Services, branding, logos, and our original site materials are owned by Universally Thinking or its licensors. You may not copy our branding or software except as needed to use the Services as offered. Other users’ posts remain their responsibility; we are not obligated to police every post.

8. Copyright complaints

If you believe content on the Services infringes your copyright, send a notice to contact@universallythinking.com with: (a) your contact information; (b) identification of the copyrighted work; (c) the URL or description of the allegedly infringing material; (d) a statement that you have a good-faith belief the use is not authorized; (e) a statement under penalty of perjury that the information is accurate and that you are the owner or authorized agent; and (f) your physical or electronic signature. We may remove content and, where appropriate, terminate repeat infringers.

9. Third-party services

The Services may link to our Main Site, Blog, or third-party sites. We are not responsible for third-party content, terms, or practices.

10. Disclaimers

THE SERVICES ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE.” TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, WE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICES WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, SECURE, ERROR-FREE, OR THAT POSTS WILL BE PRESERVED, INDEXED, OR ACCEPTED AS LEGAL EVIDENCE. WE DO NOT WARRANT NOVELTY, NON-OBVIOUSNESS, USEFULNESS, OR COMMERCIAL VALUE OF ANY IDEA.

11. Limitation of liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, UNIVERSALLY THINKING AND ITS OWNERS, OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES, AND AGENTS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST PROFITS, LOST DATA, LOST PATENT RIGHTS, LOST TRADE SECRETS, OR LOSS OF GOODWILL, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THE SERVICES OR THESE TERMS, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY.

OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ANY CLAIM ARISING OUT OF THE SERVICES OR THESE TERMS WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF (A) THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US FOR THE SERVICES IN THE TWELVE MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM OR (B) ONE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS (US $100).

SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW CERTAIN LIMITATIONS. IN THOSE JURISDICTIONS, OUR LIABILITY IS LIMITED TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW.

12. Indemnification

You will defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Universally Thinking and its owners, officers, employees, and agents from any claims, damages, losses, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising out of your User Content, your use of the Services, your public disclosures, or your violation of these Terms or applicable law.

13. Termination

You may stop using the Services and delete your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate access at any time. Sections that by their nature should survive (including 3–5 and 10–14) will survive termination. Public copies of content that already circulated may remain outside our control.

14. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the United States, without regard to conflict-of-law rules, except that if you are a consumer entitled by law to the mandatory protections of your state or country of residence, those protections still apply. Except where prohibited, you and we agree to resolve disputes in the state and federal courts located in the United States.

15. Changes

We may modify these Terms. The effective date will be updated when we do. If you continue to use the Services after changes take effect, you accept the revised Terms. If you do not agree, stop using the Services and delete your account.

16. Miscellaneous

These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between you and us regarding the Services. If a provision is unenforceable, the rest remains in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms without our consent; we may assign them in connection with a reorganization or sale of assets. Headings are for convenience only.

17. Contact

Universally Thinking
contact@universallythinking.com
benjamin@universallythinking.com