E-mails are not considered a safe means for the transmission of confidential information. We recommend that you encrypt confidential information sent by e-mail to P&TS, notably invention notices or any other information whose disclosure could harm your or P&TS's interests.

We use at your choice a secure SSL webmail or the S-MIME or PGP protocols for e-mail encryption and encourage you to do the same and let us have your public key.

For those who do not yet have S-MIME or PGP certificates, we have our own PKI infrastructure and can generate such S-MIME certificates which we make available to you at no charge for all e-mail correspondence with P&TS. The installation of a S-MIME certificate can ensure that:

• Your e-mail correspondence with P&TS will be reliably encrypted;
• The messages are signed electronically;
• The sender of the e-mail cannot dispute having sent the e-mail (non-repudiation);
• The contents of the e-mail have not been modified during transmission (integrity).

The installation of a S-MIME certificate is free of charge and takes only a couple of minutes. No software is installed and the process is compatible with all recent e-mail clients, including Outlook, Outlook Express, Lotus Notes, Eudora etc. Please contact us to receive an e-mail that will guide you automatically through the steps of generating and installing the certificate or to receive a password allowing you free access to our webmail.