Hi guys, (Anyone commercial/lawyerly from Numenta please correct anything here, this is just my impressions. IANAL).
Jeff and others in Numenta hold 58 patents (last time I checked) on HTM-related technology. Much of this IP has been irrevocably donated into the open source project NuPIC. My understanding is that any OSS project can freely use this IP, but a non-OSS project may have some issues. As one of the first people to talk to Numenta about commercial exploitation, I had a great meeting with Donna Dubinsky in November 2013 (part of this was on behalf of Francisco of cortical.io who had to leave SF just after the hackathon). Donna laid down some basic principles: 1. If you don't develop proprietary software, you can act as a consultant/configuration/applications expert on a project for a client and you don't need to discuss with Numenta (this is what I do). 2. If you want to develop a fork of NuPIC, or anything derived from Numenta's patents but encompassed in NuPIC, you can do so as another open source project and inherit some version of NuPIC's license (GPL-like). You are completely free as long as everything you do is open source. htm.java, clortex, comportex, and a few more are doing this (I do this too with clortex). 3. If you have developed something which is proprietary and commercial, you should contact Numenta and discuss how to proceed. Numenta's stated mission is to be a "catalyst for machine intelligence" so you will find them very amenable to what is going to make your project work (yet to do this). As Matt said, this may (as in the case of cortical.io) involve Numenta taking a stake in your company. This is effectively a form of investment by Numenta and is only one way to do it. If you think you have a billion dollar idea which needs HTM technology, but don't yet have the $20m to give to Numenta, a small stake in your business might make sense to both parties. If you're IBM, on the other hand, you might wait until you've identified a clear business opportunity, and you would prefer to offer Numenta the $20m in cold cash rather than a chunk of that business. In the middle, you'll find Donna is a sensible businesswoman, who knows how to strike a deal that makes both sides happy. She's been at this for a few decades with great success. If I'm wrong about any of this, I completely misinterpreted my conversation with Donna, so someone please correct me. On Numenta's financial affairs, I'd say that there's a reason Jeff and Donna decided to keep the company a private business. The two of them have already seen what happens when founders are forced to bow to corporate forces, and how their vision becomes compromised. They're lucky (and/or good) enough to have emerged from that with the resources to build Numenta and share this with us. Numenta will prosper because there is a great need for experts in this particular technology, and Numenta has 90% of them in-house. Donna, the above is my interpretation in broad brush strokes of your policy. If there's anything grossly amiss please let us know. If it's broadly right, please indicate "that's broadly right" but people should actually get in touch. I hope that helps. Regards Fergal Byrne On Fri, May 15, 2015 at 8:20 PM, Alexander Kettinen <[email protected]> wrote: > Thanks Matt, last question: what is your current yearly run rate? (If you > can comment) > > Alex > > Skickat från min iPhone > > 15 May 2015 kl. 22:12 skrev Matthew Taylor <[email protected]>: > > Contact Numenta via http://numenta.com/contact/ > > Since Numenta is currently a private company, I don't think I should > comment on our valuation. > > Also, no plans for an IPO in the near future as far as I know. > > --------- > Matt Taylor > OS Community Flag-Bearer > Numenta > > > On Fri, May 15, 2015 at 11:56 AM, Alexander Kettinen > <[email protected]> wrote: > > Matt, it's a bit premature but what is the contact point for a legal team. > > > Also do you have a internal guesstimate on the value of numenta as per > today > > ? I know it is privately held. > > > Now I must attend my dinner party > > > Have a great weekend > > Alex > > > Skickat från min iPhone > > > 15 May 2015 kl. 21:45 skrev David Ragazzi <[email protected]>: > > > Talking stock... When Numenta will go to public? :-p > > > ..or have Numenta interest on this? > > > On 15 May 2015 at 15:41, Matthew Taylor <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On Fri, May 15, 2015 at 11:39 AM, Alexander Kettinen > > <[email protected]> wrote: > > Matt, can you define partial any further? > > > Meaning stock ownership. > > > --------- > > Matt Taylor > > OS Community Flag-Bearer > > Numenta > > > > > > -- > > David Ragazzi > > Master in Sofware Engineering (University of Liverpool-UK) > > OS community commiter at Numenta.org > > -- > > Have you tried NuPIC Studio? Just check out > > https://github.com/nupic-community/nupic.studio and enjoy it! > > -- > > "I think James Connolly, the Irish revolutionary, is right when he says > that > > the only prophets are those who make their future. So we're not > > anticipating, we're working for it." > > > -- Fergal Byrne, Brenter IT http://inbits.com - Better Living through Thoughtful Technology http://ie.linkedin.com/in/fergbyrne/ - https://github.com/fergalbyrne Founder of Clortex: HTM in Clojure - https://github.com/nupic-community/clortex Author, Real Machine Intelligence with Clortex and NuPIC Read for free or buy the book at https://leanpub.com/realsmartmachines Speaking on Clortex and HTM/CLA at euroClojure Krakow, June 2014: http://euroclojure.com/2014/ and at LambdaJam Chicago, July 2014: http://www.lambdajam.com e:[email protected] t:+353 83 4214179 Join the quest for Machine Intelligence at http://numenta.org Formerly of Adnet [email protected] http://www.adnet.ie
