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Official Rules & Regulations

No purchase necessary to enter or win. Void where prohibited.

About the Competition

When to start the Competition Round
TopCoder members must register for the competition round. Registration may occur at any time during the two week competition round. All competitors who have registered for the competition round will immediately be given access to the competition problem statement for that round. The next competition round will begin on January 20, 2010 at 13:00 GMT/UTC -5 which is the earliest time that any member will be given access to the problem statement.

Upon Entering a Marathon Match
All competitors registered for a specific Marathon Match will see a Submit option for that event. Clicking the Submit link will take you to a page that will allow you to paste in a solution, select the proper language and either submit (for compilation and testing) or save your code. When the Submit button is selected, the code will be immediately compiled. Any compilation messages or errors will be shown in the Messages Area. If the compilation was successful, the submission will then be placed on a queue for automated testing. Example test cases will not be tested. When your submission has been processed, you will receive an email indicating such and your place in the standings will be adjusted accordingly. During the submission phase, overall ranking and provisional score are the only pieces of information that will be made available. A given competitor will only be allowed to submit once every 2 hours. Additionally, if a competitor has a pending submission on the testing queue it must finish testing before they may submit again.

Clicking the Test Examples button will immediately compile and place your submission on a queue for automated testing of just the example test cases. Detailed feedback will be made available when the tests are complete, including processing time, score, and any output from the program. Competitors may submit test examples once every 15 minutes. The competitor's rank and overall score will not be updated.

Prizes
There will be up to $3000 in total prize money awarded to the five (5) highest scoring members who are citizens of the United States.

Place	Prize
1st Place	$1,500
2nd Place	$750
3rd Place	$400
4th Place	$250
5th Place	$100

 

Conditions of Participation
By participating in the competition round, you agree to be bound by these rules and to all decisions of TopCoder, which are final, binding and conclusive in all matters.

Competitors must not cheat; all ideas for any code submitted must be the contestant's alone. Competitors must use their own independently developed code, and shall not copy or include code from any other party, including publicly available "open source" code that is or may be subject to licensing restrictions.

The winner of the competition will be the competitor that scores the most points across all competitors who participate. All decisions relating to the viability of submissions, the ranking of submissions and all other matters pertaining to the competition shall be within the sole discretion of TopCoder or its designee and shall be final and binding in all respects.

By participating in a Marathon Match, a winner releases and agrees to hold harmless TopCoder, its affiliates, subsidiaries, sponsors, advertising and promotion agencies, and prize suppliers, and all of their respective directors, officers, employees, representatives and agents, from and against any and all liability for any loss, property damage or damage to person, including without limitation, death and injury, due in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, from or arising out of participation in this competition, or participation in any competition-related activity, or the receipt, use or misuse of a prize.

TopCoder, in its sole discretion, reserves the right to disqualify any person tampering with the entry process, the operation of the Web site, the competition process, or is otherwise in violation of the rules. TopCoder reserves the right to cancel, terminate or modify the competition if it is not capable of completion as planned for any reason, including infection by computer virus, bugs, tampering, unauthorized intervention or technical failures of any sort.

Eligibility
The competition is open to all members who are at least 18 years of age who are U.S. citizens.

You are not eligible for this Competition if you are on the Specially Designated National list promulgated and amended, from time to time, by the United States Department of the Treasury.

All competitors must be registered members of TopCoder, and must have agreed to the rules on this page prior to participating in this competition.

Employees of TopCoder and those involved in the development, production (including prize suppliers and sponsors), implementation and distribution of this competition and their advertising or promotion agencies, parent companies, service providers, agents, officers, subsidiaries or affiliates, or any other persons or entities directly associated with the competition and members of the immediate families and/or persons living in the same household as such persons, are ineligible to enter the competition. petition.

Ownership and Rights
You hereby acknowledge and agree that TopCoder owns, solely and exclusively, all right, title and interest, including all intellectual property rights, in and to the information posted on TopCoder's website(s). You retain any and all rights to ownership of your submissions submitted to TopCoder. TopCoder will not gain ownership of this material. However, by submitting any submission or any other material to TopCoder, you hereby grant a perpetual, royalty-free, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to TopCoder to use, reproduce and publish such documents, materials or source code for commercial and/or non-commercial use.

You agree that if TopCoder is unable because of your unavailability, or for any other reason, to secure your signature to apply for or to pursue any application for any United States or foreign patents, mask work, copyright or trademark registrations covering the assignments to TopCoder above, then you hereby irrevocably designate and appoint TopCoder and its duly authorized officers and agents as your agent and attorney in fact, to act for and in your behalf and stead to execute and file any such applications and to do all other lawfully permitted acts to further the prosecution and issuance of patents, copyright, mask work and trademark registrations thereon with the same legal force and effect as if executed by your authorized agent.

Nothing in these rules and regulations shall be construed as granting you any right or license under any intellectual property right of TopCoder (including any rights TopCoder may have in any patents, copyrights, trademarks, service marks or any trade secrets), by implication, estoppel or otherwise, except as expressly set forth herein.

Confidential Information
You acknowledge the confidential and proprietary nature of the information you obtain from TopCoder regarding design specifications and functionality and/or development solutions, including, but not limited to, scope documents and source code. You also acknowledge the confidential and proprietary nature of the information contained in the project postings and in the customer and developer forums on TopCoder's website(s). You also agree (i) to hold such information in confidence and to take all reasonable precautions to protect such confidential information (including, without limitation, all precautions you may employ with respect to your own confidential materials), (ii) not to divulge any such confidential information to any third person; and (iii) not to make any use whatsoever of such confidential information except as expressly authorized in these Terms.

Indemnification and Release
By submitting design documents and/or source code in response to projects posted on TopCoder's website(s) and/or otherwise participating in forum and newsgroup discussions on TopCoder's customer and developer forums, you agree to indemnify TopCoder and any parent, subsidiary or affiliated entities, TopCoder's officers and employees, and officers and employees of any parent, subsidiary or affiliated entities and hold them harmless from any and all claims and expenses, including attorney's fees, arising from your use of TopCoder's website(s) and/or the materials gained from TopCoder's website(s) or directly from TopCoder, including any material (including third party material) that you post on TopCoder's website(s) or in any news forums and any services or products available through TopCoder's website(s). In addition, you hereby release TopCoder and any parent, subsidiary or affiliated entities, TopCoder's officers and employees, and officers and employees of any parent, subsidiary or affiliated entities from any and all claims, demands, debts, obligations, damages (actual or consequential), costs, and expenses of any kind or nature whatsoever, whether known or unknown, suspected or unsuspected, disclosed or undisclosed, that you may have against them arising out of or in any way related to such disputes and/or to any services or products available at TopCoder's website(s). You hereby agree to waive all laws that may limit the efficacy of such releases.

DISCLAIMER
THE MATERIALS AND SERVICES ON TOPCODER'S WEBSITE(S) ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMISSIBLE PURSUANT TO APPLICABLE LAW, TOPCODER DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. TOPCODER DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE FUNCTIONS CONTAINED IN THE MATERIALS WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE, THAT DEFECTS WILL BE CORRECTED, OR THAT TOPCODER'S WEBSITE(S) OR THE SERVER(S) THAT MAKES TOPCODER'S WEBSITE(S) AVAILABLE OR ANY ADVERTISED OR HYPERLINKED SITE ARE FREE OF VIRUSES OR OTHER HARMFUL COMPONENTS OR THAT TOPCODER'S WEBSITE(S), SERVER(S), ADVERTISED OR HYPERLINKED SITES WILL BE ACCESSIBLE AT ALL TIMES. TOPCODER DOES NOT WARRANT THAT SUCH ERRORS, DEFECTS OR INTERRUPTIONS IN SERVICE WILL NOT AFFECT THE RESULTS OF ITS COMPETITIONS AND SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS, AND TOPCODER DISCLAIMS ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR REDUCED PERFORMANCE OR INOPERABILTIY IN COMPETITIONS OR IN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT DUE TO SUCH PROBLEMS. TOPCODER DOES NOT WARRANT OR MAKE ANY REPRESENTATIONS REGARDING THE USE OR THE RESULTS OF ITS WEBSITE(S) WITH RESPECT TO CORRECTNESS, ACCURACY, RELIABILITY OR OTHERWISE. YOU ASSUME THE ENTIRE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION. TO THE EXTENT THAT APPLICABLE LAW MAY NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF IMPLIED WARRANTIES, THE ABOVE EXCLUSIONS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

Documents, graphics and other materials appearing at TopCoder's website(s) may include technical inaccuracies, typographical errors, and out-of-date information and use of such documents, graphics or other materials is at your own risk.

LIMITATION OF LIABILITY
TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMISSIBLE PURSUANT TO APPLICABLE LAW, TOPCODER SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES), INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF WINNINGS, DATA OR OTHER DAMAGE TO ANY OTHER INTANGIBLE PROPERTY, EVEN IF TOPCODER HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES, RESULTING FROM (i) THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE ITS WEBSITE(S), (ii) THE POSTING OF INFORMATION TO, OR THE RECEIPT OF INFORMATION FROM, ITS WEBSITE(S), (iii) THE DISCLOSURE OF, UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO OR ALTERATION OF ANY TRANSMISSION OR DATA, (iv) THE STATEMENTS OR CONDUCT OF ANY THIRD PARTY OR (v) ANY OTHER MATTER RELATING TO TOPCODER.

Choice of Law and Forum
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Connecticut. You hereby agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of the State of Connecticut. To the extent that applicable laws have mandatory application to these Terms or give you the right to bring action in any other courts, the above limitations may not apply to you. Use of TopCoder's website(s) and participation in projects posted on TopCoder's website(s) are unauthorized in any jurisdiction that does not give full effect to all provisions of these Terms.

Severability and Enforceability
If any provision or portion of these rules and regulations are held illegal, invalid, or unenforceable, in whole or in part, it shall be modified to the minimum extent necessary to correct any deficiencies or replaced with a provision which is as close as is legally permissible to the provision found invalid or unenforceable and shall not affect the legality, validity or enforceability of any other provisions or portions of these Terms.

Termination/Exclusion
TopCoder reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to revoke any and all privileges associated with accessing and/or participating in the projects posted on its website(s), and to take any other action it deems appropriate including but not limited to terminating or suspending your use of www.topcoder.com and/or www.topcodersoftware.com for no reason or any reason whatsoever, including improper use of its website(s) or failure to comply with these Terms or the Terms of Use of TopCoder's websites, which are incorporated herein by reference.

Other
The competition is void in whole or in part where prohibited by law.

A winners list of coder handles for all competitions will be available on the web site at http://www.topcoder.com displayed for at least 3 months after the end of the competition.

TopCoder may assign, novate or subcontract any or all of its rights and obligations under these rules and regulations at any time.

This competition is brought to you by TopCoder, Inc., 95 Glastonbury Blvd, Glastonbury, CT 06033.

If you have any questions regarding these Terms, contact us at service@topcoder.com