We’re excited that you’ve chosen to develop new application on the Sycamore platform. At Sycamore, we believe in putting our members first. We created our developer program to enable developers to create fantastic applications for our schools. Together, we are building the future of educational technology.
Note: You are entering into a legally binding agreement.
Last revised on September 25th, 2014.
You agree that by using our developer platform, you are entering into a legally binding agreement with Sycamore Leaf Solutions, 321 East Military Ave, Fremont, NE 68025 (“we,” “us,” “our,” and “Sycamore”). By registering for an account (a “Developer Account”) at the Sycamore Developer Portal at dev.sycamoreeducation.com/developer (the “Developer Site”), you acknowledge that you have read and understood and agree to be bound by these Sycamore API Terms of Use (the “Terms”). If you are using our developer platform on behalf of a company or other entity, you represent and warrant that you have full legal authority to register for a Developer Account on behalf of that entity and bind it to these Terms. If you are not authorized, you may not accept the Terms or register for a Developer Account for someone else.
These Terms will evolve, so please check back regularly. It is your responsibility to remain informed of these Terms.
The mission of Sycamore is to help schools make better use of technology so that can run as effiecintly as possible. To achieve our mission, we make APIs available to third party developers such as you to create applications for our members and customers.
The Sycamore Developer Program includes a self-service platform program, where you can develop applications using Sycamore’s APIs as soon as you register for a Developer Account and agree to follow these Terms, and a “Partner Program,” where you can apply to develop applications if they meet our Partner Program eligibility criteria and you have entered into a signed partnership agreement with Sycamore.
As used in these Terms, “APIs” means programmatic web APIs and associated tools and documentation that Sycamore provides, and “Application” means a software application, website, or product you create or a service you offer.
Here are the guidelines to determine which of Sycamore’s developer programs fits your Application:
You may use our self-service program if you are developing an Application designed to help Sycamore users be more productive and successful in the classroom. You should use our self-service program if your Application:
- is built as a learning experiment or as a "weekend project" with no expectations of monitization
- doesn't require business-level service agreements for uptime or reliability
- requires no help in marketing to our users
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Data Views
Sycamore's users data is private to them. Each user must give you express permission to access their Sycamore account and network through your Application (via the OAuth authentication mechanism), and you must provide the user’s account and information only to that user and no one else. In addition, your Application must not permit users to share their data with anyone else without the users express permission.
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Excluded Uses You must never do any of the following under these Terms:
- Use Sycamore Content in any advertisements or for purposes of targeting advertisements, in your Application or elsewhere. “Content” means any data or content from our Website or accessed via the APIs. Our “Website” means Sycamore’s website at www.sycamoreeducation.com and any other website owned or operated by Sycamore Leaf Solutions.
- Use the Content for any of the following: generating messages, promotions, offers, or mass messages; or for any other purpose other than to allow end users to use the Content in your Application. This includes using the Content to send a mass emails to users asking them to download, buy or interact with your Application.
- Use the APIs in any Application that includes adult content, promotes gambling, involves the sale of tobacco or alcohol to persons under 21 years of age, or otherwise violates any law or regulation.
- Sell, lease, share, transfer, or sublicense any Content or access to any Content, directly or indirectly, to anybody. That includes data brokers, salespeople, advertisers, social or professional networks, recruiters, or anyone besides yourself or the company on whose behalf you agreed to these Terms.
- Use the APIs to retrieve Content mingled with third party search results (i.e., aggregated search results).
- Commingle or supplement Content from the APIs with any other Sycamore data. For example, you cannot supplement the data you have received via a Sycamore API with data scraped from our Website (whether that scraping was done by you or someone else) or from any other source.
- Use someone’s Access Credentials to show his or her Content to someone else, e.g., as part of search results. Each user must authenticate individually to retrieve his or her Content through the APIs.
- Distribute or allow access to the stand-alone APIs to anyone other than the company on whose behalf you agreed to these Terms, or create an API that enables access to Sycamore Content. Anyone who wants to access our APIs and Content must register for our Developer Program.
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Storing Trasparency
You may copy or store any Content or capture or store any information expressed by the Content (such as hashed or transformed data) only if the storage is expressly revealed and agreed to by the end user.
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You May Store Tokens
You may store the alphanumeric user IDs (Member Tokens) that we provide to you for identifying users or any individual member’s authentication token (OAuth Token) that we provide to you when a Sycamore user authenticates your Application to his Sycamore account.
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Cache for Performance
To improve the member experience, you may cache the Content for up to 24 hours from a request for that Content through the API. This limited permission to cache is for performance reasons only. You do not have any rights to store the Sycamore Content beyond this limited 24-hour period unless otherwise agreed to by the end user.
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Protection of Stored Data
You must use commercially reasonable security measures to protect the confidentiality of all stored data, which measures are at least as secure as those you use to protect your own confidential information. The stored data must not be transferred or provided to any third parties. Sycamore may require that you certify that you have deleted stored data.
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Delete at User Request
You must delete all data collected with the user’s consent, including the OAuth Token, upon request by the user, when the user uninstalls your Application, or when the user closes his or her account with you. This includes using the /Logout endpoint to remove the OAuth Token from the Sycamore servers for services that do not create account and solely rely on the presence of an OAuth Token stored in local storage/cookies. The restrictions of this Section 3.C.1 do not apply to data that users provide directly to you and that is separately entered or uploaded to you by the user of your Application. You must delete all user and school data collected with your user's consent within 10 days of receiving a request from your user.
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Delete for Breach
You must immediately delete all data if we terminate your use of the APIs for breach of these Terms, except when doing so would cause you to violate any law or obligation imposed by a governmental authority.
Your Application must include your own user agreement and privacy policy. Your user agreement and privacy policy must be prominently identified or located where users download or access your Application. You must promptly notify us of any breaches of your user agreement or privacy policy that impact or may impact our members. Your privacy policy must be at least as stringent and user-friendly as Sycamore’s.
Before obtaining information from your users of the Application, you must obtain their informed consent by informing them what information you collect and how it will be used and/or shared.
Your Application must not:
- Implement features or business practices that harm the professional reputation, relationships, or professional ecosystem of Sycamore members.
- Impersonate a Sycamore user or misrepresent any user or other third party when requesting or publishing information.
- Obfuscate or hide any Sycamore buttons, sign-in functionality, consent, or authorization flows from your users. In order to access user or school-specific Content through the APIs, your users must sign-in with their Sycamore credentials and grant your Application access to their Content.
- Proxy, request, or use Sycamore user names or passwords in any fashion for any reason. We want our members to have safe and consistent experiences across all Applications.
When you use the Sycamore APIs, you share Sycamore with your fellow Sycamore users and developers. Write your Application as you’d want others to write theirs.
- Only ask for the minimum data fields and scopes your Application needs.
- Don’t try to exceed or circumvent any limitations placed on your Application. This includes creating multiple Applications for identical, or largely similar, usage (e.g., having one Application per customer). If we believe that you have exceeded or circumvented our limitations in a harmful manner, or if you have tried to, we may temporarily suspend or permanently block your access to the APIs, disable your developer account, or both.
- Don’t download, scrape, post, or transmit, in any form or by any means, any part of our Website. This includes data retrieved by web browser plugins.
- Don’t copy, reformat, reverse-engineer, or otherwise modify the APIs, Access Credentials, our Website or any Content.
- Don’t interfere with or disrupt Sycamore services or servers or networks connected to Sycamore services, or disobey any requirements, procedures, policies or regulations of networks connected to Sycamore services.
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Brand Features License
Subject to these Terms we grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-assignable, non-sublicenseable, and non-transferable license during the Term to display our Brand Features to promote or advertise your integration of the APIs in your Application. “Brand Features” means any trade names, trademarks, service marks, logos and domain names that Sycamore makes available to you.
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Restrictions
You must not:
- Display our Brand Features in any way that is misleading, defamatory, infringing, libelous, disparaging, obscene, or otherwise objectionable to Sycamore in its sole discretion, or in a way that suggests we have created, sponsored, or endorsed your Application or its content unless authorized by the Partner Developer agreement;
- Remove any legal, copyright, trademark, watermark or other proprietary rights notices contained in or on materials you receive or access pursuant to these Terms, including the APIs, the materials posted at the Developer Site, and our Website; or
- Use the APIs or Brand Features for any illegal, unauthorized or otherwise improper purposes, or in any manner that would violate these Terms (or any document incorporated into the Terms), or breach any laws or regulations, or violate any rights of third parties, or expose Sycamore or its members to legal liability in your use of the APIs.
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Publicity by You
Subject to our Branding Guidelines, you may promote your Application, including talking to traditional and online media and your users about your Application, so long as you do so truthfully and without implying that your Application is created or endorsed by Sycamore or otherwise embellishing your relationship with Sycamore.
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Publicity by Us
We may publicly refer to you, orally or in writing, as a licensee of the Sycamore APIs. We may also publish your name and logo (with or without a link to your Application) on our Website, in press releases, and in promotional materials without your prior consent.
You must comply with all applicable laws, including, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and applicable export laws, and these Terms, which may be amended from time to time with or without advance notice, in order to use the Sycamore APIs. You and your Application must also comply with the following, which are hereby incorporated by reference:
- The Sycamore Leaf Terms of Service and
- The Sycamore Leaf Solutions Acceptable Use Policy.
In the event of any conflict between the content in this document and the above documents, this document controls your use of the APIs. If you disagree with any of the provisions in these Terms, do not access or use the APIs.
The most current version of these Terms can be reviewed on the Developer Site. By using the Sycamore APIs after changes are made to the Terms, you agree to be bound by the most current version. If you disagree with the Terms, or changes to the Terms, you must discontinue your use of the APIs.
If we have entered into a separate, written API License Agreement with you, the terms of that agreement will govern your use of those APIs.
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Security Measures
Your network, operating system and the software of your web servers, databases, and computer systems (collectively, “Systems”) must be properly configured to securely operate your Application. You must not architect or select Systems in a manner to avoid the foregoing obligation. You must promptly report any security deficiencies in or intrusions to your Systems that you discover to Sycamore in writing via email to [email protected] or subsequent contact information posted in the Developer Site. You will work with Sycamore to immediately correct any security deficiency, and will disconnect immediately any intrusions or intruder. In the event of any security deficiency or intrusion involving the Application, you will make no public statements (e.g. press, blogs, social media, bulletin boards, etc.) without prior written and express permission from Sycamore in each instance.
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Monitoring
You agree to assist Sycamore in verifying your compliance with these Terms by providing information about your Application to us, which may also include access to your Application and other materials related to your use of the APIs. If you do not demonstrate full compliance with these Terms, we may restrict or terminate your access to the APIs.
- Support and Modifications
We may provide you with support or modifications for the APIs in our sole discretion. If we plan on no longer supporting or upgrading a specific version of the API or the API in its entirey, we will give all API Developers a minimum of 1 years notice. During that year, the API version that is being phased out will be considered 'deprecated'. We do, however, reserve the right to discontinue to Sycamore API in case of security emergency or security breach of either our systems or your Application. We may release subsequent versions of the APIs and require that you use those subsequent versions in the future after the 1 year 'deprecation' period. Your continued use of the APIs following a subsequent release will be deemed your acceptance of modifications.
- Fees
The APIs are currently provided for free, but Sycamore reserves the right to charge for the APIs in the future. If any changes in the cost of the developer resources, including but not limited to the OAuth Sandbox, Github repositories, API documentation and the APIs themselves were to take place, we will give a minimum of 1 years notice to all developers. If we do charge a fee for use of the APIs or any developer tools and features, you do not have any obligation to continue to use Sycamore’s developer resources.
- Sycamore's Independent Development
You understand and acknowledge that Sycamore may be independently creating applications, content, and other products or services that may be similar to or competitive with your Application. Nothing in these Terms will be construed as restricting or preventing Sycamore from creating and fully exploiting any applications, content, and other items, without any obligation to you.
- Developer Exception to our Privacy Policy
Sycamore may reveal personal information about developers for attribution purposes, handling inquiries from users or potential users, and other purposes Sycamore reasonably deems necessary under these Terms. You understand and agree that Sycamore may access, preserve, and disclose your personal information and your developer account details if required to do so by law or in a good faith belief that such access, preservation, or disclosure is reasonably necessary to comply with legal process or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Sycamore, its affiliates or partners, its users, or the general public.
- Sycamore Property
As between you and us, we own all rights, title, and interest, including all intellectual property rights, in and to, the (a) APIs, and all elements, components, and executables of the APIs; (b) the Content available through the APIs; (c) our Website; and (d) our Brand Features (clauses (a)-(d) collectively, the “Sycamore Materials”). Except for the express licenses granted in these Terms, Sycamore does not grant you any right, title, or interest in the Sycamore Materials. You agree to take such actions, including executing affidavits or other documents, as Sycamore may reasonably request to effect, perfect, or confirm Sycamore’s rights to the Sycamore Materials.
- Your Property
- Contributions to Sycamore
By submitting suggestions or other feedback regarding the Sycamore Materials ("Contributions") in any way to Sycamore, you acknowledge and agree that: (a) your Contributions do not contain confidential or proprietary information; (b) Sycamore is not under any obligation of confidentiality, express or implied, with respect to the Contributions; (c) Sycamore shall be entitled to use or disclose (or choose not to use or disclose) such Contributions for any purpose, in any way, in any media worldwide; (d) Sycamore may have something similar to the Contributions already under consideration or in development; (e) you irrevocably non-exclusively license to Sycamore rights to exploit your Contributions; and (f) you are not entitled to any compensation or reimbursement of any kind from Sycamore under any circumstances.
- Your Application
You represent and warrant to Sycamore that, excluding Sycamore Materials, you have the right to use, reproduce, transmit, copy, publicly display, publicly perform, and distribute your Application, and that use by Sycamore and its users of your Application will not violate the rights of any third party (e.g., copyright, patent, trademark, or other proprietary right of any person or entity), or any applicable regulation or law, including the laws of any country in which your Application is made available. Except to the extent your Application contains Sycamore Materials, Sycamore claims no ownership or control over your Application. During the term of these Terms you hereby grant to us a paid-up, royalty-free, non-exclusive, worldwide, irrevocable right and license, under all of your intellectual property rights, to: (a) use, perform, and display your Application and its content for purposes of marketing, demonstrating, and making your Application available to users; (b) link to and direct users to your Application; and (c) sublicense the foregoing rights to our affiliates. Following the termination of these Terms and upon written request from you, Sycamore will make commercially reasonable efforts, as determined in its sole discretion, to remove all references and links to your Application from the Website and service. Sycamore has no other obligation to delete copies of, references to, or links to your Application.
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Term
The term of these Terms will commence on the date upon which you agree to these Terms and will continue until: you discontinue using our APIs, you close your Developer Account, or we terminate your access to the APIs, these Terms, or both.
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Suspension; Termination
We may suspend or terminate your use of all or any of the APIs at any time if we believe you have violated these Terms or, if we believe the availability of the APIs in your Application is not in our or our users’ best interests. We may discontinue the availability of some or all of the APIs at any time for any reason where it is deemed appropriate and necessary by Sycamore for the safety of our customers and their data. We may also impose limits on certain features and services or restrict your access to some or all of the APIs or our Website. All of our rights in these Terms may be exercised without prior notice or liability to you.
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Effect of Termination
Upon termination of the agreement between you and us under these Terms:
- all rights and licenses granted to you will terminate immediately;
- you will promptly destroy Sycamore confidential information in your possession or control;
- neither party is liable to the other party just because these Terms have been terminated; and
- unless we agree otherwise in writing or as stated in these Terms, you must permanently delete all Content or other data which you stored pursuant to your use of the APIs. Sycamore may request that you certify in writing your compliance with this section.
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Survival
The terms of this Agreement shall survive any termination, except Section 2 (“Joining our Self-Service Program”), subsections 2-5 of Section 3.B. (“Store Content Only as Allowed”), subsections 1, 2, and 4 of Section 3.F. (“Treat Our Brand With Respect”) and Section 4.A. (“Security Measures”).
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SOME COUNTRIES AND JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE DISCLAIMER OF IMPLIED TERMS IN CONTRACTS WITH CONSUMERS AND AS A RESULT THE CONTENTS OF THIS SECTION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. DO NOT RELY ON SYCAMORE OR ITS SUPPLIERS, ANY INFORMATION THEREIN, OR ITS CONTINUATION. WE PROVIDE THE PLATFORM FOR SYCAMORE AND ALL INFORMATION AND SERVICES ON AN “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” BASIS. SYCAMORE DOES NOT CONTROL OR VET USER-GENERATED CONTENT FOR ACCURACY. WE DO NOT PROVIDE ANY EXPRESS WARRANTIES OR REPRESENTATIONS. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMISSIBLE UNDER APPLICABLE LAW, SYCAMORE AND ITS SUPPLIERS DISCLAIM ANY AND ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES AND REPRESENTATIONS, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, ACCURACY OF DATA, AND NONINFRINGEMENT. SYCAMORE DOES NOT GUARANTEE THAT THE SYCAMORE APIS OR OTHER DEVELOPER RESOURCES IT PROVIDES WILL FUNCTION WITHOUT INTERRUPTION OR ERRORS IN FUNCTIONING. IN PARTICULAR, THE OPERATION OF THE SYCAMORE APIS MAY BE INTERRUPTED DUE TO MAINTENANCE, UPDATES, OR SYSTEM OR NETWORK FAILURES. SYCAMORE DISCLAIMS ALL LIABILITY FOR DAMAGES CAUSED BY ANY SUCH INTERRUPTION OR ERRORS IN FUNCTIONING. FURTHERMORE, SYCAMORE DISCLAIMS ALL LIABILITY FOR ANY MALFUNCTIONING, IMPOSSIBILITY OF ACCESS, OR POOR USE CONDITIONS OF THE SYCAMORE APIS DUE TO INAPPROPRIATE EQUIPMENT, DISTURBANCES RELATED TO INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS, TO THE SATURATION OF THE INTERNET NETWORK, AND FOR ANY OTHER REASON.
SOME COUNTRIES DO NOT ALLOW THE LIMITATION OR EXCLUSION OF LIABILITY IN CONTRACTS WITH CONSUMERS AND AS A RESULT THE CONTENTS OF THIS SECTION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. Neither Sycamore nor any of our subsidiaries, affiliated companies, suppliers, employees, shareholders, or directors (“Sycamore Affiliates”) shall be cumulatively liable for any special, incidental, indirect, punitive or consequential damages or loss of use, profit, revenue or data to you or any third person arising from your use of Sycamore materials accessed through or downloaded from Sycamore. This limitation of liability shall:
- Apply regardless of whether (1) you base your claim on contract, tort, statute or any other legal theory, (2) we knew or should have known about the possibility of such damages, or (3) the limited remedies provided in this section fail of their essential purpose; and
- Not apply to any damage that Sycamore may cause you intentionally or knowingly in violation of these Terms or applicable law, or as otherwise mandated by applicable law that cannot be disclaimed in these Terms.
- Not apply if you have entered into a separate agreement to license a Sycamore API(s) with a separate Limitation of Liability provision that supersedes this section in relation to that particular Sycamore API(s).
- Law and Forum for Legal Disputes
These Terms and any claim, cause of action or dispute (“claim”) arising out of or related to these Terms shall be governed by the laws of the state of Missouri, United States, regardless of your country of origin or where you access Sycamore, and notwithstanding of any conflicts of law principles and the United Nations Convention for the International Sale of Goods. You and Sycamore agree that all claims arising out of or related to these Terms must be resolved exclusively by a state or federal court located in Johnson County, Missouri, except as otherwise agreed by the parties or as described in the Arbitration Option paragraph below. You and Sycamore agree to submit to the personal jurisdiction of the courts located within Santa Clara County, California for the purpose of litigating all such claims. Notwithstanding the above, you agree that Sycamore shall still be allowed to apply for injunctive remedies (or an equivalent type of urgent legal relief) in any jurisdiction.
- Arbitration Option
For any claim (excluding claims for injunctive or other equitable relief) where the total amount of the award sought is less than $10,000, the party requesting relief may elect to resolve the dispute in a cost effective manner through binding non-appearance-based arbitration. In the event a party elects arbitration, they shall initiate such arbitration through an established alternative dispute resolution (“ADR”) provider mutually agreed upon by the parties. The ADR provider and the parties must comply with the following rules: (a) the arbitration shall be conducted by telephone, online and/or be solely based on written submissions, the specific manner shall be chosen by the party initiating the arbitration; (b) the arbitration shall not involve any personal appearance by the parties or witnesses unless otherwise mutually agreed by the parties; and (c) any judgment on the award rendered by the arbitrator shall be final and may be entered in any court of competent jurisdiction.
Here are some important details about how to read these Terms.
- Severability
If any provision of these Terms is found by a court of competent jurisdiction or arbitrator to be illegal, void, or unenforceable, the unenforceable provision will be modified so as to render it enforceable and effective to the maximum extent possible in order to effect the intention of the provision; if a court or arbitrator finds the modified provision invalid, illegal, void or unenforceable, the validity, legality and enforceability of the remaining provisions of these Terms will not be affected in any way.
- Language
Where Sycamore has provided you with a translation of the English language version of these Terms, the Privacy Policy, or any other documentation, you agree that the translation is provided for your convenience only and that the English language versions of these Terms, the Privacy Policy, and any other documentation, including additional terms of service for Premium Services, will govern your relationship with Sycamore.
- Notices and Service of Process
In addition to Section 11.C. (“Notices and Service Messages”), we may notify you via postings on Developer Site. You may contact us here. Or via mail or courier at: Sycamore Leaf Solutions, ATTN: Legal Department PO BOX 291 Fremont, Ne 68025 USA. Additionally, Sycamore accepts service of process at this address. Any notices that you provide without compliance with this section shall have no legal effect.
- Entire Agreement
You agree that these Terms constitutes the entire, complete and exclusive agreement between you and Sycamore regarding the Sycamore APIs and supersedes all prior agreements and understandings, whether written or oral, or whether established by custom, practice, policy or precedent, with respect to the subject matter of these Terms. You also may be subject to additional terms and conditions that may apply when you use or purchase or use certain other Sycamore services, third-party content or third party software.
- Amendments to these Terms
We reserve the right to modify, supplement, or replace the terms of these Terms, effective prospectively upon posting on the Developer Site or notifying you otherwise. For example, we may present a banner on the Developer Site when we have amended these Terms so that you may access and review the changes prior to your continued use of the Sycamore APIs and developer platform. If you do not want to agree to changes to these Terms, you can terminate these Terms at any time by ceasing use of the APIs and/or closing your Developer Account.
- No informal waivers, agreements or representations
Our failure to act with respect to a breach of these Terms by you or others does not waive our right to act with respect to that breach or subsequent similar or other breaches. Except as expressly and specifically contemplated by these Terms, no representations, statements, consents, waivers or other acts or omissions by any Sycamore affiliate shall be deemed legally binding on any Sycamore Affiliate, unless documented in a physical writing hand signed by a duly appointed officer of Sycamore.
- No Injunctive Relief
In no event shall you seek or be entitled to rescission, injunctive or other equitable relief, or to enjoin or restrain the operation of the Sycamore developer platform or any APIs, content or other material used or displayed through the Sycamore developer platform.
- Beneficiaries
Entities other than Sycamore Leaf Solutions, LLC, or entities that Sycamore owns a 50% or greater interest in (“Affiliate”) are not parties, but intended third party beneficiaries of these Terms, with a right to enforce these Terms directly against you.
- Assignment and Delegation
You may not assign or delegate any rights or obligations under these Terms. Any purported assignment and delegation shall be ineffective. We may freely assign or delegate all rights and obligations under these Terms, fully or partially without notice to you. We may also substitute, by way of unilateral novation, effective upon notice to you, Sycamore for any third party that assumes our rights and obligations under these Terms.
- Potential Other Rights and Obligations You may have rights or obligations under local law other than those enumerated here if you are located outside the United States.
If you have questions or comments about these Sycamore API Terms of Use, please contact at:
Sycamore Leaf Solutions
Attn: API Terms of Use Issues
PO Box 291
Fremont, NE 68025 USA