The cup would be held in trust as a "challenge trophy" to promote friendly competition among nations, with the deed of gift being the primary instrument governing the rules to make a valid challenge for the cup and the rules of conduct of the races.
This revised Deed incorporated, among other things, the following rules: the challenger's yacht club's annual regatta must take place on the sea or on an arm of the sea, and the challenging boat must sail to the site of the contest on her own bottom, as the yacht America did when first winning the cup in England.
An interpretation of the document, when contested, can be taken before that Court for clarification on whether the Deed of Gift's terms and conditions (as written by George L. Schuyler) are being met.
In later years this has given rise to disputes relating to the meaning of particular phrases and words and clarified or further confused by taking a view on what the donor actually intended when the deed was written.
[6] The second concerned Société Nautique de Genève, the defender of the 2010 America's Cup, where the question was whether a valid challenge could be accepted by the defender from a 'shell' yacht club that was formed for the specific purpose of challenging and had not previously held a properly constituted annual regatta on an ocean water course or an arm of the sea.
Works related to America's Cup Deed of Gift with amendments and interpretive resolutions at Wikisource