Rules

Terms and Conditions

Organizer of the IPSO CHALLENGE 2015 competition 

The IPSO CHALLENGE 2015 competition (the “Competition”) is initiated and organized by the IPSO Alliance.

Contest Description

The purpose of the Competition is to promote concepts and benefits of the Internet of Things and Internet Protocol based Machine to Machine (M2M) applications. The Competition seeks innovative applications that could be utilized and commercialized in the open market. All submitted solutions (“Submissions”) will be judged, with the ten best Submissions receiving official Competition awards.

Eligibility

The competition is open to all companies and individuals 18 years of age or older as of 1 March 2015, except: the Organizer, employees of the Organizer; judges of the Competition; the Organizer’s Board of Directors, Technical Advisory Board or Committee Chairpersons, and direct family members of any of those individuals.

Entry Period

The period for submission of Applications opens at 9:01am PDT on Wednesday, March 18th, 2015, and ends at 11:59 p.m. PDT on Wednesday, July 15th, 2015 (“Entry Period”). Entries received before the Entry Period will not be considered unless they are re-submitted during the Entry Period. Entries received after the Entry Period will not be considered.

Entry Requirements and Details

Initial Round: Submissions must be received electronically by midnight Pacific Daylight Time,15 July 2015. Each Submission must include a fully completed entry form. Partially completed entries will be disqualified from further evaluation and will be discarded.

Semi-final (Prototype) Round: Submissions must be received by midnight US Pacific Daylight Time, 1 December 2015. The Submission, in order to be considered, must include a working prototype or product and operating instructions. Incomplete Submissions will be disqualified from further evaluation and will be discarded. Semi finalists are responsible for submitting a video link, to be uploaded and shared for the purpose of audience participation via social media.

Final Round: The judges will pick the three finalists from among the semi-finalists who complete their Submissions to receive monetary awards.

Initial Round Submission Procedure

Participants must register for the Competition by using the website entry form and will be required to supply specific personal data that will be electronically saved, used and processed by the Organizer in order to carry out the Competition and award prizes.

By registering for the Competition, each participant recognizes and affirms that the participant has all unrestricted rights necessary to submit the entry, and that: (i) the entry does not defame or invade the publicity rights or privacy of any person or entity; (ii) the entry does not infringe upon any person’s or entity’s intellectual property rights, including the participant’s employer, if any; and (iii) participant’s employer, if any, does not have any policy prohibiting participant’s participation in the Competition.

Semi-Final Round Submission Procedure

The judges of the Competition will use the following as the principle criteria to select Submissions for semi-final evaluation: innovation, breadth of applicability, marketability, and ease of use.

The Organizer will contact all semi-finalists by 31 July 2015 at the email address provided on the online entry form.

In order to be considered for a prize, each semi-finalist must provide a working prototype or working product for evaluation by the judges by the deadline noted above in “Entry Requirements.” Each semi-finalist is responsible for all costs and arrangements for shipping of the prototype or product. The Organizer may elect to provide a stipend to defray a portion of this cost. The Organizer is not responsible for any lost, damaged or misdirected entries. The Organizer will not return any Submission without prior arrangements made with Organizer. The Competition finalists will be chosen only from working and complete semi-final Submissions that are received by the deadline.

Awarding of Prizes

The judges of the Competition will use, but are not limited to, the following criteria to select three finalists for the three prizes: functionality, ease of use, engineering and design elegance, and inventiveness.

The Organizer will award the first place winner $10,000 USD; the second place winner $5,000 USD; and the third place winner $2,500 USD. The ten semi-finalists will be invited to make a presentation of their prototype or product at the awards ceremony that will take place at a major Silicon Valley tradeshow in early December.  The semi-finalists may receive a stipend to assist with travel and accommodations to attend the award ceremony not to exceed $1,000 USD, in addition to any prize money awarded. If a Semi- Finalist Submission is from a team, the Organizer will provide travel expenses for only one member of the team.

Title and Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property Rights means all intellectual property rights related to each Submission including, without limitation, patents, pending patent applications, copyrights, mask works on integrated circuit mask sets, and designs, chip topography rights, trademarks and any other form of common law or statutory rights of any kind and applications for any of the foregoing as well as any trade secrets or other intellectual property rights, whether in existence now or created, invented or developed in the future.

Each participant owns and will continue to own all Intellectual Property Rights to the participant’s Submission and the information provided in connection with participant’s Submission, except that each participant grants the Organizer each of the following unlimited, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free rights in the event that the participant becomes a semi-finalist:

  • To use the name, photograph or likeness of participant in any publicity or promotion relating to the Competition or Organizer;
  • To use, demonstrate, photograph, and display, the participant’s prototype or product in any publicity or promotion relating to the Competition or Organizer.

Participants are solely responsible for protecting any and all Intellectual Property Rights in any Submissions and should do so before entering the Competition if appropriate. Participants are also solely responsible for making an independent determination that they are authorized to submit a product or prototype in the Competition by notifying their employer or any other party who may have rights in the Submission. The Organizer has the right to disqualify any Submission in its sole discretion and at any stage of the Competition prior to the awarding of prizes in the event that the Organizer receives any notification that a participant did not have all rights required to make the Submission.

Taxes and Fees

The prize winners shall be solely responsible for any and all taxes or fees of any kind arising out of successful participation in this Competition.

Indemnification and Limitation of Liability

Each participant indemnifies and holds harmless the Organizer Affiliates from and against any and all liability, judgments, claims, losses, damages, costs and expenses (including, without limitation, reasonable outside attorneys’ fees) with respect to or in any way arising from participant’s participation in the Competition or the awarding, acceptance, possession or use (or misuse) of the Competition award, including, but not limited to, liability for infringement of any Intellectual Property Rights.

IN NO EVENT WILL THE ORGANIZER AFFILIATES BE RESPONSIBLE OR LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES OR LOSSES OF ANY KIND, INCLUDING DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, SPECIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF, RESULTING FROM, ARISING IN CONNECTION WITH OR PARTICIPATION IN, THE COMPETITION, INCLUDING THE NEGLIGENCE OF OTHER PARTIES OR THE NEGLIGENCE OF ANY OTHER PARTICIPANT IN THE COMPETITION.

Miscellaneous

By entering a Submission, each participant agrees to comply with these Terms and Conditions. The Organizer reserves the right in its sole discretion to disqualify any participant that the Organizer finds to be tampering with the operation of the Competition, acting in violation of these Terms and Conditions or acting in a non-sportsmanlike or disruptive manner, or with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass any other participants.

By participating in the Competition, participants acknowledge that all decisions of the Organizer and the judges are final and binding in all respects.

The Organizer may issue interpretive guidelines regarding the provisions of these Terms and Conditions, which will take effect when announced.

If for any reason the Competition is not capable of running as originally planned because, in the Organizer’s sole discretion, something has occurred to affect the security, fairness, integrity or proper conduct of the Competition, the Organizer reserves the right to terminate, modify or suspend the Competition. In the event the Competition is so terminated, the Organizer will have no obligations or liability of any kind to any participant.

The Organizer is not responsible for any lost or misdirected submissions or any technical problems with the website that delay or prevent any Submission.

These Terms and Conditions, and the relationship between the participants and the Organizer are governed by and interpreted in accordance with the internal laws of El Paso County in the State of Colorado, USA. All participants consent to the personal jurisdiction of and venue in the state and federal courts sitting in El Paso County, Colorado, USA. In the event of litigation relating to the Competition, the prevailing party shall recover reasonable costs and expenses including reasonable attorneys’ fees. This Competition is void where prohibited and the Organizer reserves the right – at any time – to exclude countries if in its opinion there are or may be any kind of legal obstacles for participation, with the consequence that any Submission from a participant residing in such country will be automatically suspended from the Competition.

Before entering please review our FAQs for more information

Sample Entry

To enter go to:

http://www.ipsochallenge.com/enter