Terms of Service

These terms govern your use of this website and any services you order from Equilinq Limited, a company incorporated in Hong Kong, company number 79372452, business registration number 79372452-000-12-25-3, registered office Unit D, 11/F, Two Chinachem Plaza, 68 Connaught Rd Central, Hong Kong. In these terms "Equilinq", "we" and "us" mean that company, and "you" means the business ordering services.

Our services are offered only to businesses and to individuals acting in the course of a trade, business, craft or profession. We do not contract with consumers. By ordering, you confirm you are acting in a business capacity and, if you are established in the EU, that you will provide a valid VAT identification number before invoicing. If you cannot confirm this, do not order. Contact us and we will tell you honestly whether we can work together.

We cover the full path from design file to first article: design for manufacture review, engineering assessment, prototyping coordination, test and certification support, tooling, and production support. We can work on any single stage or the whole path, and you can join at any stage. We work through our own factory network and, where a project needs capability we do not hold in house, through our design house partner. We do not accept defense or dual use projects. We do not accept work that would require us or any partner to breach export control, sanctions or applicable law, and we may stop work at any point if a project turns out to be of that character. We also do not accept work that would infringe a third party's intellectual property rights.

Submitting the intake form is not a contract. It is a request for assessment. We aim to give you a written first response within seventy two hours of a complete submission, setting out where your product stands, the route we recommend, and the fixed scope and price of the audit. That response is an offer, valid for thirty days unless it says otherwise. A contract forms only when you accept a written scope and price from us in writing, or pay the invoice for it. Nothing on this website is an offer capable of acceptance, and prices shown here are indicative until confirmed in a written scope.

Each stage is quoted at a fixed price for a defined scope. Work outside that scope is a variation: we will tell you the price before we do it, and we will not do it without your written approval. Costs paid to third parties on your behalf, such as tooling, certification, testing and logistics, are passed through at cost unless the scope says otherwise, and are quoted separately.

You keep ownership of everything you give us: designs, drawings, CAD files, schematics, PCB files, bills of material, firmware, source code, prototypes, samples and test data. You grant us only the limited right to use that material to perform the services. Any improvement, modification, tooling design or derivative work that we or our partners create based on or derived from your material belongs to you on creation. We will not apply for or register, or help anyone else apply for or register, any patent, utility model, design, trade mark or domain name based on your material in any jurisdiction.

We keep ownership of our own methods, templates, checklists, report formats, internal tools and general know how, including anything we knew or developed independently of your project. Nothing here transfers those to you, and using them to serve you does not give you rights in them. We do not use your material to train any artificial intelligence model, our own or a third party's, and we do not grant any third party the right to do so. Custom tooling and fixtures made for your project, including injection moulds and test jigs, belong to you once you have paid for them in full, and we will transfer them or hold them for you on request.

Rights in the deliverables we create specifically for you transfer to you when we have been paid in full for the stage that produced them. Until then you may use them for the project but you may not transfer them onward.

We treat everything you share as confidential and use it only to assess and perform your project. We protect it with at least reasonable care, and disclose it only to people who need it for your project and who are under confidentiality obligations at least as strict as ours. We will sign a separate non-disclosure agreement before files change hands if you want one, and where a project runs with our design house partner or a factory we will bring that party under written confidentiality obligations first.

We will not put your confidential information into any public or third party artificial intelligence tool, public cloud translation service or uncontrolled file sharing service. Files stay on systems we control, with access limited to the people described above.

Confidentiality does not cover information that is public without any breach by us, that we lawfully knew without restriction before you disclosed it, that we lawfully receive from a third party without restriction, or that we develop independently without using your information.

On your written request, or when our work ends, we will return or destroy your confidential information and confirm in writing, except for copies we must keep by law and automatic secure backups, which stay subject to these obligations.

You agree to treat as confidential any non-public commercial information we share with you, including our pricing, the identity of the factories, suppliers and partners we introduce you to, our assessment methodology and the contents of our reports. This obligation is mutual and runs for the same period as ours.

We will not use your name, logo, product images or the existence of your project in any marketing, publicity, case study or social media without your prior written consent. Where we describe past work publicly we anonymise it and alter identifying details.

Where we introduce you to a manufacturer, design house or supplier for your project, you agree that for the duration of the engagement and for twenty four months afterwards, dealings with that introduced party in relation to your project or any similar or derived product run through us, unless we agree otherwise in writing. This does not restrict you from using your own designs however you wish, from working with any supplier we did not introduce, from buying standard or off the shelf components anywhere, or from continuing your own research, development and commercial activity. After twenty four months this obligation ends.

We perform the services with reasonable care and skill, using suitably qualified people. We do not guarantee any commercial outcome. In particular, an audit is an engineering opinion based on the files and information you give us at the time. It is not a guarantee that a product will pass certification, that a quoted cost will hold, that a factory will perform, or that no further design change will be needed. Manufacturing involves third party factories and suppliers whose performance we influence but do not control: yield, lead time and unit cost can vary with design revisions, component availability and factory conditions, and we are not liable for those variations beyond the scope we quoted. If the information you give us is incomplete or inaccurate, our conclusions may change, and correcting the work is a variation.

Neither party excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be excluded. Subject to that, we are not liable for loss of profit, loss of revenue, loss of anticipated savings, loss of business or contracts, loss of goodwill, loss or corruption of data, or any indirect or consequential loss. Subject to that, our total liability in connection with an engagement is capped at the fees you have paid us for the stage that gave rise to the claim. Claims must be brought within twelve months of the date you became aware of the circumstances.

You warrant that the material you give us is yours to give, that you have the right to have it made, and that it does not infringe any third party patent, design right, trade mark, copyright or other intellectual property right. You warrant that the information you give us is accurate and complete so far as you are aware.

You agree to indemnify us against any third party claim, loss, liability or reasonable cost, including reasonable legal fees, arising from your breach of these terms, from your breach of applicable law, from any material or instruction you give us that infringes a third party right, or from our use of your material in accordance with your instructions.

We do not accept work that would infringe a third party's intellectual property. We do not make counterfeit goods, replicas, or products that carry another brand's name, logo or design without authorisation, and we will stop work and end the engagement if a project turns out to be of that character.

Invoices are payable within fourteen days. Prices are exclusive of taxes and duties. Where you are a business established in the EU, we invoice without VAT and you account for VAT under the reverse charge, Article 196 of Directive 2006/112/EC, and you must give us a valid VAT identification number for this to apply. Hong Kong does not levy VAT or GST. We may suspend work on overdue invoices after written notice, and unpaid stages do not transfer deliverable rights under section 6.

See our Engagement and Refund Terms, which form part of these terms.

Either party may end an engagement on written notice if the other materially breaches these terms and does not fix it within thirty days of being told, or becomes insolvent. We may also end an engagement if a project turns out to fall within section 3. On ending, you pay for work properly done up to that point, we deliver what that work produced, and sections 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12 and 18 continue to apply.

Neither party is liable for any failure or delay in performance caused by events outside its reasonable control, including natural disasters, acts of war, terrorism, government action, epidemics, pandemics, strikes, port congestion, power failures or internet outages. The affected party must tell the other promptly and use reasonable efforts to reduce the effect. If the event continues for more than sixty days, either party may end the affected engagement, and you pay for work properly done up to that point.

We handle personal data as described in our Privacy Policy.

These terms are governed by the laws of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, without regard to its conflict of laws principles.

Any dispute arising out of or in connection with these terms shall first be addressed by good faith negotiation between the parties. If negotiation fails within thirty days, the dispute shall be referred to and finally resolved by arbitration administered by the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre under the HKIAC Administered Arbitration Rules in force when the Notice of Arbitration is submitted. The seat shall be Hong Kong, there shall be one arbitrator, and the language shall be English.

Nothing in this section prevents either party from seeking interim or injunctive relief from a court of competent jurisdiction.

If any provision is held invalid, the rest stands. Our failure to enforce something is not a waiver of it. You may not assign an engagement without our written consent. We may assign our rights and obligations as part of a business transfer, merger or reorganisation.

These terms, together with our Engagement and Refund Terms, our Privacy Policy and our Cookie Policy, and the written scope you accepted, are the whole agreement for that engagement, and where they conflict, the written scope wins. We may update these terms for future engagements. The version that applies to an engagement is the one in force when your scope was accepted. These terms are written in English. Any translation is provided for convenience only, and the English version prevails in case of conflict.