1. Terms of Participation

• Before the pitches, participants must inform the greenCHEM team whether their idea has already received an award in other competitions.

• greenCHEM accepts no liability for statements or behavior by jurors or other competitors.

• greenCHEM, NEEW Ventures, jury members, and candidates will treat the submitted ideas confidentially. Personal data of participants will not be passed on by greenCHEM to unauthorized third parties.

• Legal recourse is excluded. If none of the pitched ideas are deemed worthy by the jury, the award ceremony will not take place.

• By participating in the greenCHEM Hackathon, participants accept these terms and conditions.

2. Intellectual Property Rights to Work Results
a. General IP Rights: “IP” refers to all knowledge documented in the usual form, developed objects, processes (including related records, experimental setups, models, prototypes in all development and production phases), ontologies, copyrighted works, protectable results, inventions, patent applications and rights, copyrighted computer programs (including software), data (particularly raw, meta, and research data), data collections, databases, algorithms, know-how including the created reports and documentation, which are achieved and submitted by the participants during the hackathon. The following two categories are distinguished:

1. Background IP: Refers to all IP that already exists at the time of application submission.

2. Challenge IP: Refers to IP that is created during the work on the challenge and did not exist at the time of submission.

IP remains the sole property of those involved in its creation. Regulations under the German Employee Inventions Act (ArbnErfG) remain unaffected. greenCHEM acts as a neutral innovation enabler ecosystem, providing advice and recommendations on how to handle such IP issues constructively and transparently in the interest of all parties involved.

c. Framework for Future Collaboration between Participants and NEEW: The specific conditions regarding IP transfer, licensing, or joint commercialization, among others, will be individually negotiated by NEEW with the participants. greenCHEM provides a neutral platform for consultation and exchange during this process to support fair and transparent negotiations.

d. Interim Protection: All participants retain the right to protect their Challenge IP through appropriate legal means (patents, design rights, etc.) after the hackathon.

e. Confidentiality: NEEW and greenCHEM commit to maintaining strict confidentiality regarding all submitted materials and information and will not use participant solutions for commercial purposes without explicit written agreement.

Any disclosure of information regarding Challenge IP to third parties, especially to the public, will be coordinated between NEEW, greenCHEM, and the participants in order to protect patentability and commercial interests.