P/NP Policy

The Journal of the ACM frequently receives submissions purporting to solve a long-standing open problem in complexity theory, such as the P/NP problem. Such submissions tax the voluntary editorial and peer-reviewing resources used by JACM, by requiring the review process to identify the errors in them. JACM remains open to the possibility of eventual resolution of P/NP and related questions, and continues to welcome submissions on the subject. However, to mitigate the burden of repeated resubmissions of incremental corrections of errors identified during editorial review, JACM has adopted the following policy:

No author may submit more than one paper on the P/NP or related long-standing questions in complexity theory in any 24 month period, except by invitation of the Editor-in-Chief. This applies to resubmissions of previously rejected manuscripts.