Effective 2026-05-27. Applies to all API endpoints, web interfaces, embedded widgets, and any other surface through which the Services are accessed. By using the Services you agree to these terms.
1 · The Services
The "Services" means all software, APIs, web interfaces, embedded JavaScript widgets, and related computational systems operated by Richard L. Sanders ("Operator") under the trademarks BenchSlap™, BenchSlap PRO™, 4All.Help™, Vox Omnium™, Vox Omnium Prime™, Option.Black™, AEGIS™, AEGIS PRIME™, V4 Truth Table™, Citation Gravity™, Chomper™, and Commission Inquest™, and accessible from the domains benchslap.com, benchslap.pro, benchslap.app, 4all.help, and option.black, including all subdomains and successor domains.
2 · Who You Are When You Use the Services
By initiating any HTTP request to any Service endpoint, by loading any page containing a Service widget into a browser, or by otherwise accessing any Service surface, you become a "User" bound by these Terms. No click-through dialog is required to bind You; the act of accessing the Services constitutes acceptance, in accordance with established browse-wrap principles where, as here, notice of the terms is made conspicuously available at the deployment surface and at a stable URL referenced from the API response headers.
3 · What You May Do
Subject to these Terms, You may use the Services to:
Make ordinary, good-faith requests for legal research, document drafting, citation verification, translation, and similar end-user purposes for which the Services are publicly offered;
View, save, print, and use the output you receive from the Services for your own lawful purposes, including in connection with your own legal matters and your own publications, subject to the restrictions in Section 5;
Embed the published widget script tags on your own websites in conformity with Operator's published embed documentation, where such embedding does not violate Sections 4 or 5.
4 · What You May Not Do (No-Reverse-Engineering Covenant)
You agree that You will NOT, directly or indirectly, individually or in concert with others, by any means:
Reverse-engineer the Services. You will not decompile, disassemble, or attempt to derive the source code, internal architecture, model selection, prompt structure, pipeline composition, or any other non-public implementation detail of any Service endpoint by means of API probing, response analysis, timing-side-channel analysis, output-pattern analysis, error-message analysis, or any analogous technique.
Train competing systems on Service outputs. You will not use any output produced by the Services as training data, fine-tuning data, reinforcement-learning reward signal, or other input to any machine-learning model that competes with or substitutes for the Services. The Services' outputs are licensed for use, not for re-derivation of the model.
Conduct systematic pipeline analysis. You will not perform systematic enumeration, automated probing, or any analogous large-scale experimental analysis of Service behavior intended to characterize the pipeline's internal operation, decision criteria, threshold values, model assignments, or pass orderings. Single good-faith end-user queries are not prohibited; programmatic enumeration designed to map the internal architecture is.
Circumvent technical protection measures. You will not bypass, disable, evade, or interfere with any rate limit, authentication gate, output watermark, content-integrity check, or other technical protection measure that the Operator has placed on or within the Services. Where the Services would not respond to a request absent circumvention of such a measure, attempted circumvention is a violation of these Terms and may give rise to liability under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1030.
Misappropriate trade secrets. You acknowledge that the engine-side implementation of the Services constitutes trade-secret information of the Operator, protected under the Defend Trade Secrets Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1836 et seq., and the Utah Uniform Trade Secrets Act, Utah Code § 13-24-1 et seq. You will not use, disclose, or attempt to derive any such trade-secret information through Your access to the Services.
Misuse outputs to confuse the marketplace. You will not represent Service outputs as having been produced by any party other than the Operator's Services, nor will You use the trademarks listed in Section 1 to designate Your own goods or services or those of any third party.
Why this section exists. The Services embody substantial methodological innovation that the Operator has elected to protect through a combination of patents (filed or pending), trade-secret protocols, defensive publications, and these contractual covenants. The covenant in this Section 4 is a load-bearing element of that protection strategy and is enforceable independent of any other intellectual-property right the Operator holds or may later be found to hold or not to hold.
5 · Outputs — Your License, Operator's Reservations
For outputs produced by the Services in response to Your requests:
You receive a non-exclusive, non-sublicensable, perpetual license to use the output for Your own lawful purposes, including use in litigation, publication, and Your own business or personal affairs.
You do not receive any license, express or implied, to the underlying Services, to the Operator's models, prompts, glossaries, pipelines, gates, thresholds, or implementation details.
The Operator retains the right to publish, display, study, and report on aggregate statistical patterns of Service usage, provided that the Operator does not disclose individual Users' identifying information or content of confidential matter without process.
6 · Privilege and Confidentiality
Where You are an attorney accessing the Services in the course of representation of a client, You acknowledge that the inputs You submit may contain attorney-work-product, attorney-client communications, or other confidential matter information. The Operator handles such inputs as confidential to the extent technically practicable, but the Operator does not by reason of providing the Services become Your attorney, Your client's attorney, or an agent of either, and access to the Services does not by itself establish any attorney-client or fiduciary relationship between the Operator and You or Your client. Where You require enhanced privilege boundaries for any matter, consult the Operator at richard@option.black regarding the Operator's privilege-boundary processing options.
7 · No Warranty; No Substitute for Counsel
The Services are provided AS IS and WITHOUT WARRANTY of any kind. The Services produce outputs that are designed and engineered to be verified-against-record where possible, but the Operator makes no guarantee of the legal sufficiency, factual accuracy, or fitness for any particular purpose of any output. The Services are not a substitute for the advice of a licensed attorney in Your jurisdiction. Where the matter involves substantial sums, contested rights, criminal exposure, professional license risk, or any other consequence of significance, You should consult an attorney admitted in the relevant jurisdiction.
8 · Governing Law and Venue
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Utah, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. The federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act, and the federal Lanham Act apply to the extent of their respective subject-matter jurisdictions.
Any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or Your use of the Services shall be litigated exclusively in the state and federal courts located in Salt Lake County, Utah, and You consent to the personal jurisdiction of those courts. You waive any objection to venue or forum non conveniens in connection with any such proceeding.
9 · Remedies
Without limiting any other available remedy:
Breach of Section 4 (No-Reverse-Engineering Covenant) constitutes both a contractual breach and, where applicable, a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1030, and the Defend Trade Secrets Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1836 et seq.
The Operator is entitled to seek injunctive relief, including ex parte injunctive relief where appropriate, to restrain ongoing or threatened breach of Section 4 without the necessity of posting bond beyond the minimum required by the court.
The Operator is entitled to recover actual damages, statutory damages where available, disgorgement of any benefit obtained through breach, and reasonable attorney's fees and costs incurred in enforcement.
The Operator's election of any remedy does not preclude pursuit of any other available remedy, whether at law or in equity.
10 · Severability and Survival
If any provision of these Terms is held unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in full effect. Sections 4 (No-Reverse-Engineering), 5 (Outputs), 8 (Governing Law and Venue), and 9 (Remedies) survive any termination of Your use of the Services.
11 · Updates
The Operator may update these Terms by posting a revised version at this URL with an updated "Effective" date. Continued use of the Services after the updated Effective date constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms. Material changes that reduce Your existing rights or expand Your obligations will be flagged on the deployment surfaces for at least 14 days before taking effect against existing Users.