Licensing
Updated: January 11, 2011
Background
We are in the early days of exploring hierarchical temporal memory (HTM) technology. We seek to create an active and engaged community of developers to work together to advance the state of the art. Our licensing strategy is designed to encourage experimentation and to support developers in building commercial applications.
HTM Intellectual Property
Several developers have asked whether Numenta intends to enforce its patent rights against the development of independent HTM systems. We have many issued patents and patent applications on HTM, the HTM Cortical Learning Algorithms, and on various aspects of NuPIC.
Here is our position: In order to encourage exploration and development of HTM technology, Numenta promises that it will not assert its current patent rights against development or use of independent HTM systems, as long as such development or use is for research purposes only, and not for any commercial or production use. Any commercial or production use of HTM technology that infringes on Numenta's patents will require a commercial license from Numenta. For these purposes, "commercial or production use" includes training an HTM network with the intent of later deploying the trained network or application for commercial or production purposes, and using or permitting others to use the output from HTM technology for commercial or production purposes.
We believe that commercial use and distribution of any software that implements, includes, or is based on the algorithms, pseudo-code, or sample code published by Numenta will require a license from Numenta. In order to encourage development, distribution, and use of such software, we have created the Numenta Non-Commercial Use license. We grant you a license to copy and create derivative works of our currently published algorithms, pseudo-code, and sample code ("Your HTM Software"), and to distribute Your HTM Software to third parties, subject to the requirement that you distribute Your HTM Software only under the terms and conditions of the Non-Commercial Use license and require any recipients of Your HTM Software to do the same.
To inquire about a commercial intellectual property license, please write to sales@numenta.com.
Next Generation Software Licenses
We are in the process of creating our product and licensing strategy for our next generation software products.
Translation License
We have had inquiries from individuals who would like to translate the HTM Cortical Learning Algorithms paper into other languages, and we welcome such translations. The following is our license for such translations. You are required to include the Numenta Translation License, both in English and in the target language, with all translations of Numenta work. Be sure to include the version number of the HTM Cortical Learning Algorithms paper in your translation. Please notify us of any translations that you would like us to make available to the general public on our web site.
Numenta grants you a license to translate the document "Hierarchical Temporal Memory: Cortical Learning Algorithms" subject to the following conditions. You may not charge for this translation. You must include the full text of the Numenta Translation License with each copy that you publish or distribute, both in English and in the target language. You acknowledge and agree that your rights in any translation are subject to Numenta's underlying rights, and that you have no right to use the Numenta algorithms, pseudo code, or technical information for any commercial or production use.
Numenta Translation License (PDF)Legacy Software Licenses
Our previously released software is the Numenta Platform for Intelligent Computing (NuPIC) v1.7.1 (including our first generation algorithms called Zeta1), the Vision Toolkit, and the Numenta Web Services. We no longer support this software, do not intend to offer backwards compatibility from future versions, and are not offering commercial licenses. See our Legacy Software Licensing page for information on a no-charge research license.
