SoftBank Generative AI
Idea Contest
Application Rules

Article 1. Purpose of the Contest

The SoftBank Generative AI Idea Contest (hereinafter, the "Contest") is operated by SoftBank Corp. (hereinafter, the "Operator") based on a commission from SoftBank Group Corp. (hereinafter, the "Sponsor") for the purpose of soliciting innovative ideas utilizing generative AI from students and promoting the creation of new forms of value.

Article 2. Eligibility

Contest applicants must meet all of the following requirements. Furthermore, when applying as a group, all group members must meet each of the following requirements.
1. (1)
  Applicants must reside in Japan or possess a Japanese residence and be a student at a university, graduate school, or technical college established in Japan and must complete the application procedure in Japan.
2. (2)
  Applicants must be between 18 years of age and older and less than 30 years old as of April 1, 2025.
3. (3)
  Applicants must not be an executive or staff member of a private corporation, national or local government, or other organizations. However, this does not include persons (hired part-time, etc.) who are primarily employed for a fixed period on an hourly wage basis according to auxiliary or temporary business needs.
Applications may be submitted by individuals or groups (up to five people) (hereinafter, the corresponding individual for an individual application and each individual group member for a group application shall be referred to as the "Applicant"). Applications from individuals or groups not meeting the eligibility requirements will be deemed invalid.
Applicants may be asked to confirm their identity during the screening process.

Article 3. Application Content

The application content must be newly conceived by the Applicant and unpublished in Japan. Content which has already been publicly released may not be submitted.
Consulting with or receiving support from third parties, outsourcing the work, or submitting a project that simply reuses content automatically generated with generative AI is prohibited (applicants may utilize and refer to generative AI, etc. in submitting their application).
The Applicant will be required to apply in accordance with the separately specified application format and method. Applications that do not conform to the specified application format and method will be deemed invalid.
Changes and revisions to the application content are not permitted after the application period has ended.
The application content must be created in Japanese or English.
The application content may be reviewed and evaluated not only by the Sponsor and the Operator but also by third parties deemed appropriate by the Sponsor or the Operator. Such third parties may include contractors and officers and employees of group companies of the Sponsor or the Operator.
In the preliminary screening of this contest, generative AI may be used to summarize application content and provide reference evaluations. However, the submitted materials will not be used to train AI models, and any AI-generated output will be used solely as an aid in the review process. All final evaluations and selections will be conducted entirely by human judges.

Article 4. Rights Concerning the Application Content

At the time of application, applicants agree to transfer all new intellectual property rights (including copyrights (including rights under Articles 27 and 28 of the Copyright Act), the right to obtain a patent, the right to obtain a utility model registration, the right to obtain a design registration, and all other intellectual property rights) concerning the content of their application to SoftBank Group Corp. via the Operator.
The Applicant shall not exercise the moral right of an author with respect to the application content.
The application content may be freely edited, revised, duplicated, or distributed, etc. at the discretion of the Sponsor or Operator without requiring the Applicant to be notified, and the Applicant will not take any action that interferes with such free usage.
The Applicant may not make any claim for compensation regarding the intellectual property rights of the application content or for compensation for the use of the application content by the Sponsor or parties designated by the Sponsor except for the distribution established in Article 5, Paragraph 6.
The Applicant must guarantee that the application content does not infringe on the rights of third parties (including, but not limited to, copyrights, moral rights of an author, patents, designs, trademarks, trade secrets, contracts, portrait rights or privacy rights, and other intellectual property rights).
The Applicant must not disclose or leak to third parties any information concerning the implementation of the Contest, confidential information obtained during the Contest, and information about submitted ideas and deliverables.

Article 5. Handling of Intellectual Property Rights

Regarding the intellectual property rights transferred to the Sponsor through the Operator, the Intellectual Property Group of SoftBank Group Corp. may consider and file patent applications. The Applicant will not be notified at the time of application but will be informed of the application number at a later date once the application has been filed.
When filing a patent application, the Sponsor will submit an application containing information about the patent including "the name and domicile or residence of the inventor" (the address will list the address of the organization or company, etc. provided on the separate application form rather than the address of the individual Applicant) to the Director-General of the Patent Office pursuant to Article 36, Paragraph 1, Item 2 of the Patent Act. Furthermore, pursuant to Article 64, Paragraphs 1 and 2 of the Patent Act, information regarding patents (applications) including information about the matter in question will be published in the Patent Gazette by the Director-General of the Patent Office when one year and six months have passed from the date of the patent application, and the information will also be published in the Patent Gazette when the establishment of the patent right is registered after the patent application examination and decision have been completed pursuant to Article 66, Paragraph 3 of the Patent Act.
In applying to participate in the Contest, the Applicant shall consent to having their name listed in the application documents submitted to the Patent Office, in accordance with a patent application linked to the application content, as the name of the inventor and published in the unexamined patent publication bulletin issued by the Patent Office one year and six months from the application.
The Sponsor will decide whether to file an application with the Patent Office for an examination to obtain a patent. Moreover, depending on the results of the examination by the Patent Office, the acquisition of a patent right may not be possible. The Sponsor and Operator will not respond to any inquiries regarding the status or results of the examination application to the Patent Office.
Manuscript review by the inventor will be omitted due to the inclusion of confidential matters in the specification.
If a patent is registered and licensing income or capital gains (hereinafter, the "Profit") are obtained as a result of the Sponsor licensing or transferring the patent to a third party, one-third of the Profit, after deducting reasonable costs incurred by the Sponsor (such as patent application fees, rights management expenses, and content- related costs), shall be distributed to the inventor.
When issuing payment under Paragraph 6, the Sponsor will notify the recipient. If it is reasonably determined that the inventor cannot be contacted at the time such payment is made, the Profit will not be paid to the inventor.
The Sponsor may add examples of invention applications for the purpose of accurately describing the invention details of the submitted idea in the application documents and obtaining strong patent rights. The inventor may not raise any objections to the content of the application documents.
If the Sponsor submits an application for design registration, the Applicant will be notified separately.

Article 6. Handling of Private Information

The Sponsor and Operator will use the private information of the Applicant only within the scope necessary to run the Contest, conduct screening, notify the Applicant about the examination results, engage in public relations activities (including the announcement of examination results and promotional activities), and other actions to implement the Contest. The Operator may also use the information to send various notifications.
The Sponsor and the Operator may provide the Applicant's personal information—such as name, contact information, affiliation, application content (including text, materials, videos, etc.), and bank account details necessary for prize payment—to carefully selected subcontractors within the scope necessary to achieve the purposes outlined in the preceding paragraph. The tasks entrusted to such subcontractors may include screening and evaluation activities as stipulated in Article 3, Paragraph 6. In such cases, the Sponsor and the Operator shall require the subcontractors to handle personal information appropriately and shall exercise necessary and appropriate supervision over them.
The Sponsor and Operator will not disclose or provide private information to third parties without the consent of the Applicant except when pursuant to laws and regulations.
Details concerning the handling of private information will be established in the privacy policies of the Sponsor and Operator.

Article 7. Prohibited Matters

The Applicant is prohibited from engaging in the following acts related to their participation in the Contest.

(1)
Acts which use services provided by the Sponsor or Operator for unauthorized purposes
(2)
Acts which violate laws and regulations or public morals
(3)
Acts which infringe on the rights of the Sponsor, Operator, other Applicants, or third parties (including, but not limited to, copyrights, moral rights of an author, patents, designs, trademarks, trade secrets, contracts, portrait rights or privacy rights, and other intellectual property rights)
(4)
Acts which interfere with the operation of the Contest
(5)
Acts of eligibility falsification
(6)
Activities that use the Contest for commercial purposes
(7)
Other acts which the Sponsor or Operator deem to be inappropriate

Article 8. Disclaimer

The Sponsor and Operator will not respond to any inquiries regarding the screening and results of applications including the number of applications.
The Sponsor and Operator will not be responsible for any costs incurred by the Applicant in applying to the Contest.
The Sponsor and Operator will bear no responsibility whatsoever for the distribution of prize money between group members when the Applicant participates as a group and any license income or capital gains as established in Article 5, Paragraph 6.
If the Sponsor and Operator are unable to contact the Applicant (in the case of a group entry, (i) it will be the representative for receiving the total prize money if a member of said group is nominated as the representative or (ii) each corresponding Applicant if the group selects to have the prize money divided equally (fractional amounts rounded up to the nearest whole number) for each Applicant) when awarding the prize money and reasonably determine that the prize money cannot be awarded, said prize will not be awarded to the corresponding Applicant.
Any entries suspected of infringing the rights of third parties (including, but not limited to, copyrights, moral rights of an author, patents, designs, trademarks, trade secrets, contracts, portrait rights or privacy rights, and other intellectual property rights) or suspected of being automatically generated may have their prizes withdrawn even after the screening results.
If it is determined that the application does not meet the eligibility requirements (including but not limited to applications submitted by individuals residing outside Japan or affiliated with educational institutions established outside Japan), or if the contact information provided at the time of application is inaccurate and the Sponsor and Operator reasonably determine that the Applicant cannot be contacted, the application shall be deemed invalid, and the Sponsor and Operator shall delete the corresponding application content and related information. The Applicant shall not raise any objection to such action.
If the Sponsor and Operator reasonably determine that an Applicant has engaged in acts which fall under Article 7 and other prohibited items, they may prohibit the Applicant's participation in this Contest without prior notification. Furthermore, if the Sponsor, Operator, or third parties incur damages, the Applicant will assume all legal liability and must compensate the Sponsor, Operator, and third parties for all damages, losses, and costs, etc. (including legal fees to a reasonable extent).
In the unlikely event that a third party files a claim for infringement of rights, compensation for damage, or other lawsuit or objection regarding the content of an application, the Applicant will be responsible for resolving the dispute at their own expense, and the Sponsor and Operator will bear no responsibility for any damages suffered as a result of the Applicant entering this Contest.
The Sponsor and Operator may change, discontinue, or cancel the details of this Contest without notice.
All applications to this Contest and the provision of related information shall be deemed to have occurred within Japan, and all matters related to the Contest shall be governed by the laws of Japan.

Article 9. Exclusion of Antisocial Forces

The Applicant is required to represent and warrant that they abide by the following items now and in the future.
1. (1)
  The Applicant is not an organized crime group (as defined in Article 2, item 2 of the Act on Prevention of Unjust Acts by Organized Crime Group Members (hereinafter, "Organized Crime Act")), member of an organized crime group (as defined in Article 2, item 6 of the same act), associate of an organized crime group, company affiliated with an organized crime group, corporate racketeer, social movement racketeer, organized intellectual crime syndicate, or any other group or individual (hereinafter, jointly referred to as "Antisocial Forces") that uses violence, intimidation, or fraudulent methods to habitually commit violent, unlawful acts (as defined in Article 2, item 1 of the same act) to achieve its own goals.
2. (2)
  Antisocial Forces are not directly or indirectly involved in the management of the Applicant.
3. (3)
  The Applicant does not have any relationship that may be deemed to be an inappropriate use of Antisocial Forces such as for the purpose of obtaining illicit gains for oneself or a third party or for the purpose of causing damage to a third party.
4. (4)
  The Applicant does not provide funds, etc. or other forms of facilitation, etc. to Antisocial Forces.
The Applicant is prohibited from engaging in or causing a third party to engage in any of the following acts.
1. (1)
  Violent demands with respect to the Sponsor, Operator, or a third party as stipulated in each item under Article 9 of the Organized Crime Act
2. (2)
  Unreasonable demands that exceed the legal responsibility of the Sponsor, Operator, or a third party
3. (3)
  Threatening statements or violent actions with respect to the Sponsor, Operator, or a third party
4. (4)
  Using fraudulent means or force to obstruct the business or harm the reputation of the Sponsor, Operator, or a third party
If the Applicant is found to be in violation of the provisions of Paragraphs 1 or 2, the Applicant must immediately report such facts to the Sponsor or Operator.
The Sponsor or Operator may conduct any necessary investigations concerning the compliance of the Applicant with the provisions of Paragraphs 1 and 2. In this case, the Applicant will cooperate with the said investigations and must submit any required documentation.
If the Applicant falls under any of the items in Paragraph 1 and engages in any of the acts in Paragraph 2, the Sponsor and Operator may cancel the application or withdraw the prize of the corresponding Applicant without notice.
If an application or prize is canceled under the provisions of the preceding paragraph, the Applicant shall not make any claims against the Sponsor and Operator for damages and expenses incurred in connection with said cancellation regardless of the pretext.
If the Sponsor and Operator suffer damages from canceling an application or prize according to the provisions of Paragraph 5, they may claim compensation for such damages from the Applicant.

Article 10. Changes to the Application Rules

The Sponsor and Operator may change the terms of these rules as needed.
The changed rules will come into effect from the moment when they are posted on the Operator's website.

Article 11. Other

The Applicant must agree to these rules before applying.
Any matters not specified in these rules will be decided by the Sponsor and Operator.
The official text of these rules shall be in Japanese.
The governing law of these rules shall be Japanese law.
The Tokyo District Court or the Tokyo Summary Court shall be the exclusive court of first instance for disputes concerning this Contest.

SoftBank Generative AI Idea Contest Application Rules