Terms of Service

1. About Aspis Bio

"Aspis Bio", "we", "us" and "our" refer to the Aspis Bio project, currently operated as a pre-incorporation alpha in the European Union. All notices, requests, and contacts under these Terms should be sent to main@aspis-bio.com. When Aspis Bio is incorporated as a legal entity, its name and registered address will replace this section; the contact email will remain the same.

2. Eligibility

You must be at least 16 years old (in the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom) or 18 years old (in the United States and most other jurisdictions) to use the Service. By using Aspis Bio you confirm that you meet these requirements. If you use the Service on behalf of an organisation, laboratory, or research institution, you represent that you are authorised to bind that organisation to these Terms.

3. Alpha status — no service-level promise

The Service is currently offered as an alpha. Features may change, be rate-limited, be temporarily unavailable, or be removed at any time without notice. The Service is provided free of charge during the alpha. We may introduce paid plans in the future; any paid plan will be governed by additional terms presented and accepted before purchase, and will respect the right of withdrawal granted to consumers under EU Directive 2011/83/EU where applicable.

4. Research use only — not a medical device

Aspis Bio is a research-support tool for laboratory organisation, calculations, notes, microscopy and gel analysis, and bulk RNA-seq processing of non-human model organisms. It is not a medical device and must not be used for clinical diagnosis, medical treatment, emergency response, regulated decision-making, or any human-genomics application. You are solely responsible for independently verifying AI answers, calculations, exported files, and scientific outputs before relying on them in research, publication, manufacturing, regulatory submissions, compliance, safety, or operational decisions.

5. Your account

Sign-in uses passwordless one-time codes sent to your email. You are responsible for the security of the email inbox you sign up with, for keeping device access protected, and for any activity that takes place under your account. Notify us immediately at main@aspis-bio.com if you suspect unauthorised use. You can delete your account at any time from /account/manage; deletion is processed immediately and is irreversible.

6. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• use the Service in any way that violates applicable law, regulation, or third-party rights;
• upload, transmit, or process human personal data, patient data, protected health information (PHI), regulated human-genomics data, government-classified information, or any content for which you do not hold the necessary rights;
• attempt to bypass authentication, rate limits, quotas, sandboxing, or other access controls;
• reverse-engineer, scrape, or extract data from the Service except as expressly permitted by these Terms or by mandatory law;
• upload malware, attempt to compromise the integrity of the Service, or interfere with other users;
• use the Service to train competing AI models, build a substantially similar service, or otherwise compete with Aspis Bio;
• misuse the AI features to generate illegal content, harassment, disinformation, malware, or content that infringes third-party intellectual property.

7. Your content

You retain all rights in the content you submit to the Service (sample sheets, notes, images, FASTQ files, AI prompts and responses, exports). You grant Aspis Bio a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, process, transmit, and display that content solely for the purpose of operating, securing, and improving the Service, providing support to you, and complying with legal obligations. We do not use your content to train AI models. The licence ends when you delete the content or your account, except for back-up copies that may persist briefly until they are cycled out by lifecycle policy.

You are solely responsible for the lawfulness of the content you submit and for ensuring you have all necessary rights, consents, and approvals.

8. AI features

Aspis Bio includes AI assistants (Ask AI, Aspis Helper, RNA-seq Director, Biovision AI). AI output is probabilistic and may be incomplete, incorrect, outdated, or unsuitable for your specific context. The AI does not execute pipeline or system commands; any action is decided by the Aspis Bio Worker and requires your explicit confirmation. Do not submit human personal data, secrets, passwords, regulated human-genomics data, patient data, or protected health information to any AI feature. You remain solely responsible for any decision you make based on AI output.

9. Dropbox connector

Connecting Dropbox is optional. By connecting Dropbox, you authorise Aspis Bio to use the Dropbox permissions necessary to perform the exports and backups you request. You remain responsible for your Dropbox account, the lawfulness of content you export there, and Dropbox's own terms. Disconnecting Dropbox in Aspis Bio clears the app's locally-stored Dropbox tokens but does not delete files already exported; revoke app access in your Dropbox account settings to remove residual access fully.

10. Labguru connector

Connecting Labguru is optional. By using Labguru export, you authorise Aspis Bio to send selected Lab Book notes and export metadata to your Labguru workspace through Aspis Bio server-side infrastructure. You are responsible for confirming that exported content complies with your laboratory, institution, and Labguru policies, and with Labguru's own terms.

11. Third-party services

The Service is built on infrastructure provided by Cloudflare, Scaleway, Infomaniak, transactional email providers, and the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Optional connectors integrate with Dropbox and Labguru. Each of these providers has its own terms and policies that apply to your use of their services. We are not responsible for the acts or omissions of independent third parties.

12. Source-available licence

Unless a separate written licence applies, Aspis Bio source code is source-available under the PolyForm Strict License 1.0.0. Source availability does not grant permission to operate a competing service, remove notices, sublicense the software, or use it beyond the licence terms. All trademarks, logos, and brand elements remain the property of Aspis Bio and may not be used without prior written permission.

13. Intellectual property notices and reports of infringement (DMCA & EU)

If you believe content on the Service infringes your intellectual property rights, send a notice to main@aspis-bio.com including: (i) identification of the work allegedly infringed, (ii) the URL or sufficient description of the allegedly infringing material, (iii) your contact information, (iv) a statement made under penalty of perjury that the notice is accurate and that you are the rights-holder or authorised to act on its behalf, and (v) your physical or electronic signature. We will respond to valid notices in accordance with the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act and Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 (Digital Services Act).

14. Suspension and termination

You may stop using the Service and delete your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access if you materially breach these Terms, if continued service would expose Aspis Bio or other users to legal, security, or operational risk, or if we discontinue the Service. Where legally required, we will give reasonable notice and an opportunity to remediate. Sections that by their nature should survive termination (notably licence to retained content, disclaimers, liability limits, indemnification, and dispute-resolution clauses) will survive.

15. Disclaimer of warranties

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, the Service is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied, or statutory. Aspis Bio expressly disclaims all implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, scientific correctness, non-infringement, accuracy, and quiet enjoyment.

Nothing in this section limits warranties or remedies that cannot be excluded under EU consumer-protection law, the EU Sale of Goods Directive (EU) 2019/771, the Italian Consumer Code (D.Lgs. 206/2005), or other mandatory law in your country of residence.

16. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Aspis Bio (and its contributors, agents, and licensors) will not be liable for:

• indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages;
• lost data, lost profits, lost revenue, lost research time, or reputational harm;
• damages arising from third-party services (Cloudflare, Scaleway, Infomaniak, Dropbox, Labguru, app stores);
• damages arising from AI output errors, connector failures, account-deletion of data the user had not exported, or events outside our reasonable control.

Our total aggregate liability arising out of or relating to the Service, in contract, tort, or otherwise, will not exceed one hundred euros (€100) or, if greater, the total amount you have paid to Aspis Bio in the twelve months preceding the event giving rise to the liability.

Nothing in this section limits liability that cannot be excluded under applicable law, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud, fraudulent misrepresentation, gross negligence, wilful misconduct, or any liability that cannot be excluded under mandatory EU or Italian consumer law.

17. Indemnification

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law and except where prohibited by mandatory EU consumer law, you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Aspis Bio against any third-party claims, losses, damages, costs, and reasonable attorneys' fees arising out of: (i) your breach of these Terms, (ii) your content, (iii) your misuse of the Service, or (iv) your violation of any law or third-party right.

18. Governing law and jurisdiction

These Terms are governed by the laws of Italy, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. The competent courts of Milan, Italy have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service, except as set out below.

EU consumers: if you use Aspis Bio as a consumer resident in the European Union, you also benefit from the mandatory protections of the law of your country of residence, including the right to bring proceedings in the courts of your country of residence. The European Commission provides an online dispute-resolution platform at ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr.

US residents: if you are a resident of the United States and you accept these Terms, the following applies in addition: Informal resolution first. You agree to contact main@aspis-bio.com and attempt to resolve any dispute informally for at least 30 days before initiating any formal proceeding. Class-action waiver. To the extent permitted by law, you and Aspis Bio waive the right to participate in any class action, class arbitration, or representative proceeding. Each party may bring claims only on an individual basis. Small claims. Either party may bring an individual claim in a small-claims court of competent jurisdiction if it qualifies. These US-specific provisions do not deprive EU or other non-US consumers of the mandatory protections of their local law.

19. Notices

We may send notices to you by email to the address tied to your account or by posting them in the Service. You may send notices to us at main@aspis-bio.com. Notices are deemed given when sent.

20. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms as the Service evolves. Where the change is material we will give reasonable notice (for example, by email to active accounts or by a banner on the website) and a fair opportunity to stop using the Service before the change takes effect. Continued use of the Service after the effective date of the updated Terms constitutes acceptance of the changes, except where mandatory law requires explicit consent.

21. Miscellaneous

These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, the PolyForm Strict 1.0.0 licence (where it applies to source code), and any plan-specific terms accepted at sign-up, are the entire agreement between you and Aspis Bio about the Service. If a provision is held unenforceable, the rest will remain in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms without our prior written consent; we may assign them to an affiliate or successor.

22. Contact

For any question about these Terms — including alpha access, security reports, intellectual-property notices, account help, partnership inquiries, or media — email main@aspis-bio.com.