# Rewarding Innovation in The Innovation Game

## Introduction

The rewards for innovation in The Innovation Game (the "**Game**") are designed to be **adequate** to incentivise Contributors to submit their innovation ("**Contributions**") to the Game with the understanding that the Contributions will be made available to others as the basis for **open innovation** under the *TIG Open Data License*, and for further innovation by participants in the Game under the terms of the *TIG Innovator Outbound Game License*.

By **adequate**, we mean that the reward must be enough to cause commercially valuable innovation (by implication, what is commercially valuable should, at least, be novel over the state of the art, innovative and free from encumbrances) to be submitted to the Game. What is adequate reward may not necessarily be sufficient in terms of fully compensating a Contributor for their Contribution (that would be impossible to determine at the point of submission of the Contribution), it just needs to be enough to cause the Contributor to submit their Contribution.

In an ideal world, the rewards to Contributors would be exactly commensurate with the value added by an Contributor's Contribution. Because the Game seeks to reward Contributors for improved algorithm performance, it is intuitively attractive to look for a method of quantitatively measuring the absolute value added by each of their Contributions, but this would add significant (and what we consider unnecessary) complexity and also fail to recognise a number of realities which we believe would be impossible to overcome, including, the difficulties of objectively measuring and verifying the quantum of the immediate commercial value of a particular Contribution, any latent value only realised later in time after the rewards have been assessed and any indirect spill over value. Accordingly, we have decided, for now, to keep it as simple as possible.

We will seek only what is **adequate** to incentivise a Contributor to submit their innovation to the Game. This assessment of reward may not necessarily look objectively fair in relative terms (when comparing one algorithm to another), particularly in hindsight, but any apparent inequity is significantly mitigated by the fact that the value of the TIG token will represent all off the accrued value and diversity of all Contributions over time and so each Contributor will have the chance to benefit (if they hold some, or all, of their tokens) from the value created not just by their Contribution, but also that from the Contributions made by other Contributors throughout the life of the Game.

One of the most obvious rewards offered by the Innovation Game for Contributions, is the TIG token. Whether the token rewards are adequate to incentivise the submission of a Contribution will depend on the token price prevailing at the time of submission, the number of challenges to which rewards are allocated, the Contributor's perceived value of their proposed Contribution and also, to some extent, on the expected future value of the token. Some Contributors will also be motivated by other forms of reward such as reputational and academic impact.

Because the token price will vary from time to time, we will only know if, as the basis of reward, it is adequate, by gathering empirical evidence provided by the quantity of Contributions in practice, their quality (indicated by demand for licenses), and by feedback from potential Contributors. For this reason, the Team will always be alert to adjusting the rewards for the Game to make them adequate. Whilst the protocol is still in development, rewards will be under constant review.

If a Contributor decides to withhold their innovation from the Game because they assess that the reward is not adequate incentive, they will be exposed to the jeopardy that, whilst they refrain, someone else may submit an equivalent or better Contribution resulting in them being deprived of the rewards that they could have earned themselves by submitting their innovation to the Game.

A fundamental cornerstone of the Game is the synthetic market that is created through incentivising Benchmarkers to adopt for the best performing Contributions for solving each Challenge in the Game. The more that a Contribution is adopted by Benchmarkers, the more reward is allocated to it. If a Contribution makes enough difference that Benchmarkers, acting rationally to improve their rewards from the Game, adopt it instead of other available alternatives, then the market is designed to reward that Contribution accordingly.

In the context of the Game (with the exception below mandating by the TIG Game Rules\*) it is crooked thinking to simply assess the quantum of lines of code, present or changed, for determining a Contribution's appropriateness for reward or what the quantum of that reward should be. If the synthetic market is functioning properly the best Contribution will prevail and an enquiry into "why" it is prevailing is not relevant. It is the job of the TIG Team to ensure that, through the design of each Challenge in the Game, the synthetic market provides the closest proxy for real world demand and utility for the Contributions so that rewards in the Game incentivise worthwhile innovation.

\**The TIG Game Rules do mandate that a Contribution must make a "meaningful difference" over existing implementations in the Game. This will stop simple plagiarism where no, or insignificant, additional value is added by a Contributor.*

## Defining and Classifying Innovation

Generally, improvements in algorithmic methods tend to yield exponential or order-of-magnitude efficiency gains by changing the problem-solving approach, while the way in which algorithmic methods are implemented in code tend to provide smaller, incremental improvements. It is important therefore, that TIG places emphasis on incentivising the submission of innovative algorithmic methods. The Game does that by introducing a process for identifying and labelling (see "Unique Algorithm Identifier" below) algorithmic methods, certain of which (see Advance Submissions below) will be eligible for additional rewards (so called Advance Rewards).

The Game allows for two different types of Contribution: (1) **Algorithmic Methods** (the fundamental approach or strategy for solving a problem, independent of specific code or language); and (2) **Algorithmic Implementations** (code)

## Algorithmic Methods

In the Game, an Algorithmic Method may, or may not, qualify as an Advance Submission (eligible for Advance Rewards).

TIG believes that the determination of whether an Algorithmic Method is an Advance Submission should be done by a combination of; **(i)** a token weighted vote based on an assessment of, amongst other things, the novelty and inventiveness\* of the Algorithmic Method; and **(ii)** an assessment of the performance of the Algorithmic Method determined solely by the extent to which Algorithm Implementations of that Algorithmic Method are adopted by Benchmarkers in the "TIG synthetic market" (see: *Accessing Advance Rewards* below).

\* *For a discussion and explanation of novelty and inventiveness in the context of the Game see the document [Advance Rewards Guidelines](./voting.md).*

## Algorithm Implementations

Algorithm Implementations are expressions of Algorithmic Methods in code and, in the context of the Game, may be an expression of an Algorithmic Method which is an Advance Submission or an expression of an Algorithmic Method that is not an Advance Submission.

## Token Rewards for Innovation

To reflect the patentability of, and greater potential for significant impact on performance that, innovative Algorithmic Methods can have compared with Algorithm Implementations, the Game offers additional rewards for certain Algorithmic Methods that qualify as Advance Submissions. These additional rewards (so called "**Advance Rewards"**) persist for multiple Rounds where an Advance Submission continues to provide the basis of Code Submissions adopted by Benchmarkers.

An Code Submission which does not embody an Advance Submission, only rewards the Contributor of that Code Submission with Code Rewards (subject to satisfaction of adoption thresholds). Where a Code Submission does not embody an Advance Submission, Advance Rewards notionally allocated by the Game for Advance Submissions will, instead, be allocated to the TIG treasury and be used to bootstrap Advance Submission development (these are referred to in the Game as "**Bootstrap Rewards**" because they are intended to be used to ultimately enable all Code Submissions to embody an Advance Submission).

For Code Submissions that embody an Advance Submission, two types of reward are potentially available (subject to satisfaction of adoption thresholds):

* **Code Rewards** will be available for the Contributor that submitted the adopted Code Submission.  
    
* **Advance Rewards** will be available for the Contributor that submitted the Advance Submission embodied in a Code Submission.  
    
The Contributor(s) earning Code Rewards and Advance Rewards in respect of a Code Submission that embodies an Advance Submission may be the same or different entities. An Contributor can earn both Code Rewards and Advance Rewards simultaneously or at different times.  
  
### Code Rewards for Code Submissions
  
**10%** of the total rewards available in each Round will be allocated to Code Rewards for Code Submissions.  
  
### Advance Rewards for Advance Submissions
  
**20%** of the total rewards available in each Round will be allocated to Advance Rewards for Advance Submissions.  
  
The most significant difference between Code Rewards and Advance Rewards is that Advance Rewards will continue to be earned for as long as the Advance Submission is inherited by a sufficiently adopted Code Submission, meaning that Advance Rewards can persist for longer because they will be earned in connection with any, and all adopted Code Submissions which embody that Advance Submission. Code Rewards will be earned only for as long as the respective implementation is adopted by Benchmarkers. Because of the potential for the persistence of adoption of an Advance Submission, aggregate rewards over time for an Advance Submission have the potential to far exceed Code Rewards.  
  
Advance Rewards have the potential to be higher than Code Rewards to reflect four attributes of Advance Submissions;  
    
1) Advance Submissions are potentially patentable (bringing greater commercial value to the TIG ecosystem);  
     
2) Advance Submissions are novel (there is no novelty test in the Game for Code Submissions which means they may have lower commercial value than Advance Submissions);  
     
3) Advance Submissions generally have greater potential to make significant performance improvements over the state of the art (bringing greater value to the TIG ecosystem); and  
     
4) Advance Submissions are more certain to have value extrinsic to the Game.  
     
It is the TIG Team’s belief that adequacy of reward can be achieved for Code Submissions by appropriately setting the period during which a Code Submission will be guaranteed not to be used as the basis for a subsequent Code Submission contributed by a third party. At present this period is two Rounds and the TIG team will be monitoring this as the protocol develops.  
  
## Accessing Advance Rewards
  
If a Contributor believes that their Contribution may represent an Advance Submission, then they may request that their Contribution is considered for eligibility as an Advance Submission allowing access to Advance Rewards.

For a Contribution to be eligible as an Advance Submission, the following must **ALL** be satisfied with respect to the Contribution:  
     
1) It must be declared, by Token Holder Vote that the relevant Algorithmic Method is eligible to be an Advance Submission;  
     
2) The intellectual property rights embodied in the Contribution must be irrevocably assigned to TIG in accordance with the TIG IP Policy; and
     
3) The Contributor must burn two hundred and fifty (250) TIG tokens for each requested Token Holder Vote. For an Advance Submission to start earning Advance Rewards for its Contributor, in a rolling 1 week window, the sum of all Code Submissions which embody the Advance Submission must achieve a sufficient degree of adoption by Benchmarkers (where for Code Rewards the adoption threshold by Benchmarkers is presently 25% to obtain Code Rewards, the corresponding adoption threshold by Benchmarkers for an Advance Submission will be 50%). The reason why the threshold of adoption is higher for Advance Submissions is that TIG wishes to reserve Advance Rewards for Algorithmic Methods that also offer a significant improvement in performance (which will be valued more highly by commercial licensees).   
     
To maximise the likelihood that an Algorithmic Method will be approved as eligible to be an Advance Submission by a Token Holder Vote, a Contributor seeking eligibility for their Algorithmic Method must diligently complete the [Advance Evidence Template](../../tig-algorithms/advances/evidence_template.md).

## Encumbrances
  
The value of Contributions to TIG will be compromised if the Contributions are encumbered by third party intellectual property rights and the terms of the TIG Inbound Game License seeks to address this.  
  
The terms of the TIG Inbound Game License state:  
  
"Submitter represents that Submitter is legally entitled to grant the above licenses and that, to the best of Submitter’s knowledge, the Work does not infringe any rights of a third party."  
  
## Attribution of Copyright Owner
  
The header file for each Code Submission submitted to the Game must comply with the terms of the TIG Inbound Game License. The TIG Inbound Game License requires the incorporation of a copyright notice that establishes the identity of the copyright owner (which may or may not be the original author of the code) of the Code Submission.  
  
## Unique Algorithm Identifier (UAI)
  
With the introduction of Advance Rewards for certain Algorithmic Methods (Advance Submissions), the correct identification of the original creator of the Algorithmic Method embodied in a Code Submission is important.   
  
It is important that the identification is not only correct, but that it appears in all Code Submissions which embody the relevant Algorithmic Method.  
  
The copyright notice does not necessarily identify the original creator of the Algorithmic Method embodied in the Code Submission (because the creator of the Algorithmic Method and the author of the code implementing the Algorithmic Method may be different). For this reason, the header file must also include information which identifies the creator of the Algorithmic Method. To do this TIG will issue a Unique Algorithm Identifier (UAI) for any Algorithmic Method submitted to TIG. This UAI will be included in the header file of the Code Submission embodying the algorithmic method before it is published by TIG. The UAI will enable TIG to identify which algorithmic methods are eligible for Advance Rewards and which ones are not.  
  
The [Game Rules](../agreements/game_rules.pdf) will mandate that where Code Submission (Code Submission B) is a modified implementation of an existing Code Submission (Code Submission A) and continues to embody an Advance Submission substantially similar to that embodied Code Submission A, then the UAI in Code Submission A must be entered by the Author of Code Submission B into the header file of Code Submission B. This should create an accurate lineage of the code back to the original creator of the relevant underlying Advance Submission.  
  
There will be a very strong incentive for Contributors of each Advance Submission to ensure that they protect the persistence of the Advance Rewards associated with their Advance Submission, by carefully scrutinising the novelty and inventiveness of any Advane Submission submitted to TIG which seeks to compete with their Advance Submission for the relevant Challenge.