Who owns what, decided upfront.

This policy explains who owns what and who may use what when you work with NEOFORGE or CITEC3D. It applies to part submissions, technical assessment, quotes, parts orders, optimization and pre-industrialization projects, materials programmes, process licences, transfer packages and ForgeOS software.

Your signed proposal or contract takes precedence over this policy. Every proposal contains a rights schedule that applies these principles to your project.

1. Your designs and data remain yours. Submitting a part, receiving an assessment, or placing an order transfers no rights in your designs or data to us.
2. We use your designs and data only to prepare your technical assessment and quote, and to carry out the work you order.
3. We do not use your geometry or data to train models shared with other customers without your written consent.
4. We do not share your designs or data with third parties, except subcontractors we need for your order (for example a heat-treatment or testing partner). They are bound by confidentiality, and we tell you which work goes to subcontractors in the proposal.
5. We do not name you or show your part publicly without your written consent. Case studies are anonymized.
6. On request, we return or delete your files after the project, except where we must keep records for quality documentation or law. Retention period:

1. A parts order buys parts and the agreed quality documentation — not the process recipe.
2. The build files, parameters and process settings we use to make your parts stay with us. We use them only to make your parts.
3. The quality documentation for each order is agreed in the order. We do not claim certifications we do not hold.

1. If you want to run the process yourself, we agree licence or transfer terms at the start, not after. Scope and rights are written into the proposal before work starts.
2. Deliverables such as reports, inspection data and documentation packages are listed in the rights schedule with the right you receive.
3. A corrected build file delivered in an optimization project may be used for the named part on the named machine, within the term stated in the proposal. Production use beyond that is covered by a process licence.
4. Ownership of design changes we propose is agreed in the proposal. The methods we used to find them remain ours.
5. The process recipe and NEOFORGE models remain NEOFORGE's unless a transfer of ownership is explicitly contracted. Even then, our models and software are not included.

1. A process licence gives you specified usage rights: which part, which machine or machine model, which site, for how long, and in what volume.
2. A licence does not by itself transfer ownership of the recipe or the underlying IP.
3. Licence fees are either an annual fee per part number or a fee per part produced, as agreed in the proposal.
4. Using the process on a part, machine or site not named in the licence needs an extension of the licence and, for a new machine, a transfer package.

1. A process window belongs to the alloy, not the machine. We translate it to each machine through the thermal process and the machine interface. Never a file copy.
2. A print file never transfers unchanged to any machine. Transfer is engineered and validated per target machine.
3. A transfer package may include documentation, adaptation to specified equipment and sites, validation builds and support. The contents are listed in the proposal.
4. A transfer is complete when validation builds on the target machine meet the criteria agreed in the proposal.

1. Your powder compositions, powder data and test data remain yours.
2. Process windows and material models we develop remain NEOFORGE's. They are licensed, per machine or customer, as set out in the agreement.
3. We do not claim achieved readiness levels. Whether a material is production-ready is decided by the evidence, by you and by your qualification authority.

1. ForgeOS Production Copilot and ForgeOS Engineering Copilot are licensed, not sold. They are delivered as a service by our engineers or installed in your environment. We do not offer them as a cloud service.
2. Your data processed with ForgeOS remains yours. Build files you create with a licensed ForgeOS installation are yours to use on the licensed machines.

• Parts already produced may still be used, sold and maintained.
• Your designs and data stay yours; we return or delete them on request.
• Paid-for deliverables can still be used for the purposes stated in the rights schedule.
• Production use of a licensed process ends, except for any agreed run-out or sustainment period.
• Use of NEOFORGE software ends.
• Confidentiality continues for the period stated in the contract.

1. Upload your part through Submit Your Part. Files are used only to prepare your technical assessment and any quote you ask for.
2. The technical assessment is a screening supported by our models, reviewed by an engineer before it reaches you. They are not a quotation and not a printability guarantee.
3. Files are encrypted in transit and at rest and hosted in Germany, under EU GDPR. Access is limited to the engineers working on your request. See Data security.
4. If you need an NDA before sharing files, ask us and we will sign one before you upload.