RELEASED: AMTA Invention of Fact Guidance Memorandum
Prior to the start of the 2020 AMTA Season, President Will Warihay announced an intention to provide additional guidance surrounding the interpretation of Rule 8.9 governing Invention of Fact. The Board of Directors sought community response, and it assigned the development of said Guidance Memorandum to the Competition Response Committee (CRC).
“We heard the calls from the community for additional guidance about invention of fact from AMTA. We do not believe that anyone in AMTA seeks to deliberately break the rules, but rather, teams are all seeking the same thing: a common understanding of what the rules are and what they mean. The Board of Directors and I agreed that this survey and resulting memorandum were both productive and warranted.” says President Warihay. The Guidance Memorandum includes a description of the rule, the process for seeking remedy following a potential violation, the way in which AMTA assesses alleged violations, and a list of frequently asked questions.
The CRC produced this Memorandum on behalf of the Board of Directors. “Our survey confirmed that the vast majority of the AMTA community shares a common interpretation of the invention-of-fact rule. That said, our duty was to prepare formal guidance around a rule that depends heavily on the testimony elicited by participants in individual rounds,” says CRC Chair Kyle Thomason. “We want to encourage creativity, but all violations of Rule 8.9 are improper, and we hope that this memorandum will make sure everyone in the AMTA community is on the same page as to how the CRC assesses alleged violations.”
The Guidance Memorandum will be made available on the ‘Rules and Forms’ page of the AMTA Website, and incorporated as a reference in future updates to the AMTA Rulebook. Further questions should be directed to President Warihay and CRC Chair Kyle Thomason.