Terms of Service & License Agreement
Governing legal terms, source document parsing liability disclaimers, and engineering verification obligations for the Bridge Inspector Toolbox (BIT) mobile application and administration portal.
1. License Grant & Offline Operational Lease
Subject to your strict compliance with this Agreement and payment of applicable subscription seat fees, the Developer (Cody Harnish, individually and doing business as Pythagoras Toolbox) grants you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to install and execute the Bridge Inspector Toolbox (BIT) mobile application on Android hardware that you or your employer own or control, solely for internal bridge inspection, structural condition documentation, and data collection purposes.
Offline Field Operations: Active offline operation is permitted for up to twenty (20) consecutive days from your last verified online check-in. Following expiration of the 20-day grace window, an online connection is required to refresh the cryptographic lease before further report export functions can be performed.
2. Restrictions on Use
You agree that you shall not:
- Reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or derive source code from the Application or its proprietary parsing engines;
- Sub-license, rent, lease, or resell access to unauthorized third parties outside your designated organization;
- Circumvent or tamper with cryptographic license validation, hardware lease tokens, or role-based access controls;
- Utilize the Application in violation of governing state DOT standards, FHWA regulations, or applicable bridge safety codes.
3. Ownership of Intellectual Property, Exclusive Local Data Storage & Third-Party File Systems
Platform Intellectual Property
The Application, including its architecture, source code, user interface, font extraction algorithms, sounding calculations, brand marks, and documentation, remains the sole and exclusive intellectual property of Cody Harnish and Pythagoras Toolbox.
Customer Inspection Data & Zero Cloud Field Storage
You and your inspection firm retain 100% full, exclusive ownership, title, copyright, and trade secret rights to all collected bridge condition notes, structural defect evaluations, hydrographic soundings, photos, audio dictations, and finalized inspection reports.
Local-First Architecture: Field notes, defect evaluations, photographs, sounding measurements, and finalized reports are NOT collected, transmitted, hosted, backed up, or shared by the Developer or the platform anywhere. All inspection data and generated reports reside strictly and exclusively locally on your mobile device or in your explicitly selected third-party file system (e.g., corporate cloud drives like Microsoft OneDrive, SharePoint, Google Drive, external SD cards, USB drives, or local file exports chosen directly by the user). The Developer maintains zero access to, copy of, or visibility into your inspection records.
Disclaimer of Liability for Third-Party Storage & Local Data Loss
The Developer exercises no control over, and expressly disclaims any and all liability for, the availability, security, data integrity, synchronization, transmission errors, file corruption, or data loss occurring within or caused by any user-selected third-party file system, cloud storage provider, operating system file manager, or local hardware failure. Licensee bears sole, unmitigated responsibility for maintaining appropriate data backups, secure archival storage, and compliance with statutory engineering record retention mandates.
4. PDF Ingestion & Source Document Quality Disclaimer
Reliance on Source Document Quality: The Application incorporates specialized algorithms designed to extract structural elements, quantities, defect sentences, historical photographs, and sounding tables from legacy bridge inspection PDF reports. You acknowledge and expressly agree that automated parsing fidelity, accuracy, and completeness are fundamentally dependent upon the format, digital encoding, structural layout, font mapping tables, scanning resolution, and overall digital quality of the source PDF document provided.
Flawed, Non-Standard, and Disparate Agency Formats: Legacy inspection reports originate from disparate state transportation agencies, third-party software platforms, scanned physical archives, and diverse export engines. The developer does not warrant or guarantee that all PDF documents will parse correctly, completely, or without error, particularly when source files contain embedded font anomalies, non-standard CID font encodings, skewed scans, anomalous delimiters, or complex multi-column structures.
Absolute Exclusion of Parsing Liability: IN NO EVENT SHALL THE DEVELOPER OR PLATFORM CONTRIBUTORS BE HELD LIABLE FOR PARSING ERRORS, INCOMPLETE DATA EXTRACTION, OMITTED STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS, TRUNCATED DEFECT NARRATIVES, OR MISALLOCATED CONDITION STATE QUANTITIES. WE CANNOT AND DO NOT ACCEPT LIABILITY FOR PARSING NOT WORKING CORRECTLY WHEN IT RELIES HEAVILY ON THE FORMATTING, CONDITION, AND DIGITAL FIDELITY OF THE SOURCE DOCUMENT BEING PARSED.
Affirmative Duty of Professional Engineering Verification: The Application operates strictly as a field-recording and documentation aid. In accordance with governing federal and state bridge inspection standards (including FHWA NBIS 23 CFR Part 650), certified Bridge Inspection Team Leaders and licensed Professional Engineers maintain the sole, non-delegable legal responsibility to independently review, verify, and validate all extracted data against original certified source reports before field reliance or final report submission.
5. Evidentiary Recording Aid Status & Professional Engineering Disclaimer
THE APPLICATION IS PROVIDED STRICTLY AS A FIELD-RECORDING, DATA-COLLECTION, AND DOCUMENTATION AID.
THE APPLICATION DOES NOT PERFORM PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERING ASSESSMENTS, STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY ANALYSES, LOAD RATINGS, OR STATUTORY SAFETY CERTIFICATIONS. THE APPLICATION DOES NOT SUBSTITUTE FOR THE LICENSED ENGINEERING JUDGMENT, PHYSICAL ON-SITE INSPECTION, STATUTORY ASSESSMENTS, OR FORMAL SIGN-OFFS OF A CERTIFIED BRIDGE INSPECTION TEAM LEADER (FHWA NBIS 23 CFR § 650.309(b)) OR LICENSED PROFESSIONAL ENGINEER (FHWA NBIS 23 CFR § 650.309(a)).
The Developer (Cody Harnish / Pythagoras Toolbox) is not an engineering consulting firm and does not engage in the practice of professional engineering in any state or jurisdiction.
6. Total Exclusion of Structural Liability & Consequential Damages
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, IN NO EVENT SHALL CODY HARNISH, PYTHAGORAS TOOLBOX, OR PLATFORM CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR:
- Structural Assessments & Undetected Defects: Any structural evaluations, load ratings, scour analyses, or failure to detect, identify, record, or alert to any structural defect, fracture-critical condition, fatigue crack, material deterioration, foundation undermining, or impending failure;
- Bridge Failures & Public Safety Incidents: Any bridge damage, structural deflection, collapse, partial collapse, service interruption, roadway or bridge closures, public safety emergencies, vehicular accidents, personal injury, physical disability, loss of life, wrongful death, property damage, project delays, liquidated damages, or state/federal regulatory sanctions, fines, citations, or compliance audit penalties; or
- Indirect & Consequential Damages: Any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages (including loss of profits, business interruption, loss of revenue, loss of reputation, or loss of data), even if advised of the possibility of such damages, arising out of or in connection with the use of or inability to use the Application or reliance on any outputs generated therefrom.
7. Strict Monetary Liability Cap
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE TOTAL AGGREGATE CUMULATIVE LIABILITY OF CODY HARNISH, PYTHAGORAS TOOLBOX, AND PLATFORM CONTRIBUTORS FOR ANY AND ALL CLAIMS, DISPUTES, OR CAUSES OF ACTION ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THIS AGREEMENT, THE APPLICATION, OR ITS USE (WHETHER IN CONTRACT, TORT, NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, STATUTORY DUTY, OR OTHERWISE) SHALL BE STRICTLY LIMITED TO THE ACTUAL SUBSCRIPTION FEES PAID BY LICENSEE TO DEVELOPER FOR THE SPECIFIC USER ACCOUNT IN THE TWELVE (12) MONTHS IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO LIABILITY. IF LICENSEE ACCESSED THE APPLICATION UNDER A 30-DAY FREE TRIAL, PROMOTIONAL EVALUATION, OR UNPAID TIER, DEVELOPER'S TOTAL MAXIMUM AGGREGATE LIABILITY SHALL BE ZERO DOLLARS ($0.00).
8. Express Indemnification by Licensee
Licensee agrees to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Cody Harnish, Pythagoras Toolbox, and their respective agents, successors, and assigns from and against any and all third-party claims, demands, lawsuits, actions, proceedings, liabilities, losses, damages, judgments, settlements, fines, penalties, costs, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees, court costs, and expert witness expenses) arising out of or resulting from:
- (a) Licensee's or its personnel's use or misuse of the Application, or reliance upon any data, calculations, or reports produced by the Application;
- (b) Any bridge inspection, structural condition assessment, defect documentation, or omission performed or omitted by Licensee;
- (c) Any structural failure, collapse, defect, vehicular collision, personal injury, wrongful death, or property damage occurring at, on, or beneath any bridge or structure inspected using the Application;
- (d) Any breach by Licensee of this Agreement or non-compliance with governing federal (FHWA NBIS 23 CFR Part 650) or state bridge inspection regulations; or
- (e) Any dispute between Licensee and any bridge owner, state DOT, or regulatory agency.
9. Subscription Terms & Cancellation
- Monthly Seats: Subscription access is priced on a per-seat monthly model ($34.99 standard inspector seat, $19.99 trainee seat).
- 30-Day Free Trials: Up to six (6) 30-day evaluation trial seats are granted per verified organization.
- Cancellation: Organization managers may increase, decrease, or cancel subscription seats at any time via the billing dashboard. Changes take effect on the following billing date.
- No Refunds: Subscription seat fees are billed in advance on a recurring monthly cycle and are non-refundable. Lapsed or cancelled accounts retain access through the end of the current paid billing period; no partial-month refunds or prorated credits are issued, except where mandated by applicable law.
10. Governing Law & Dispute Resolution
This Agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, without regard to its conflict of law provisions. Any legal action or proceeding arising under this Agreement shall be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Pennsylvania, and both parties irrevocably consent to the personal jurisdiction and venue thereof.