Generally, whenever I have held a design contest in the past I have made sure to specify in the terms (as a contest holder) that I would only claim rights to th

Generally, whenever I have held a design contest in the past I have made sure to specify in the terms (as a contest holder) that I would only claim rights to the winning design. I would make sure to have the winning designer sign a copyright release. I'd also ask that because designs used my trademark or IP that if designers included a losing entry in their portfolio they should label it as "designed on spec" to avoid looking as if they had a working relationship with my company. If they wanted to sell the design as a pre-made logo, template, etc. I asked that they altered it slightly to make it more generic if it included my company name (i.e., from "Joe's Diner" to "Moe's Diner" or something). Every contest site might have a different way of dealing with this sort of thing, though. I'd check their TOS.