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, CHARLE, 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.

• Subject to prior agreement, participants are prepared to present their ideas at the final event and take part in public relations activities.

• Legal recourse is excluded. If the jury deems none of the submissions to be worthy, the awarding of prizes will be omitted.

• By participating in the greenCHEM Open Innovation Challenge, participants accept the stated 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.

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

c. Interim Protection: All participants retain the right to protect their Challenge IP through appropriate legal means (patents, design rights, etc.) during and after the Open Innovation Challenge.

d. Confidentiality: CHARLE 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 CHARLE, greenCHEM, and the participants in order to protect patentability and commercial interests.

e. Freedom from third-party rights: By submitting Challenge IP at any stage of the Challenge, each participant guarantees to the organizer and CHARLE that they are the sole holder of the intellectual property rights to the Challenge IP, or that, where they are not the sole rights holder, they are authorized—on the basis of the necessary permissions from the rights holders—to dispose of the Challenge IP also on their behalf. Each participant guarantees that by submitting Challenge IP, they are not infringing any third-party intellectual property rights.