I see that we need a little clarification here: we’ve been getting some queries from folks with great diabetes design ideas, who are a bit hesitant to enter the 2009 DiabetesMine Design Challenge contest for fear of giving up the rights to their intellectual property. No worries! Here’s what you need to know:
You (the contest participant) retain the full IP rights to your idea. We (the contest organizers) don’t take ownership of anything. The California HealthCare Foundation is a non-profit with no commercial interest in product development. This contest is meant to foster innovation, so the $10,000 Grand Prize is for the winner to use to invest in turning his/her idea into a viable product. Winners also get exposure to some leading healthcare VCs (venture capitalists) and of course to the design experts at IDEO.
I can now see how one statement in our Contest Rules may be easily misinterpreted:
3. Materials submitted will be placed in the public domain, royalty-free, for usage by the general public.
The “public domain” bit was simply meant to express that all entrants grant us permission to post about the entries you submit and publish about them in relation to this contest. It does NOT mean, however, that we take over ownership of your concept in any way.
I hope this clarifies things. I plan to add a caveat on the Rules page as well.
If you have other questions about the competition, please feel free to post them here, where others can follow the conversation.
We hope your creative gears are turning, and look forward to hearing from you all!
Seems like if someone really wants to be sure of protecting their IP, they should at minimum formally write up the idea with any relevant pictures and make sure they have the info dated and witnessed to establish some claim on priority if the idea ever actually becomes relevant.
What is the deadline for submission? We need to know.
Hi Kirez,
That would be May 1, 2009
See all the details here:
http://www.diabetesmine.com/designcontest/rules
Thank you!