Applies to: WebMEM® Protocol, documentation, reference materials, and implementations
Location: /license/
Last Updated: 2026-08-24
Overview
The WebMEM Protocol is a publicly available technical specification for publisher-side machine knowledge representation and resolution.
Public availability of the specification does not mean that all rights associated with WebMEM are granted without restriction.
Different WebMEM materials and capabilities may be governed by different rights, including:
- copyright in specification text, documentation, diagrams, and examples;
- rights associated with implementation of the WebMEM Protocol;
- patent rights where applicable;
- trademark rights in WebMEM® and related marks;
- conformance and certification rights;
- software and reference implementation licenses;
- and rights associated with commercial products, services, datasets, or tooling.
This page describes the general licensing framework for those materials and rights.
No right should be inferred merely because a WebMEM specification, example, schema, diagram, or other material is publicly accessible.
Public Specification
The WebMEM Protocol specification is publicly available for reading, evaluation, research, technical review, interoperability analysis, and other uses permitted by the applicable documentation license.
Public publication is intended to make the architecture inspectable and understandable to publishers, researchers, developers, standards communities, technology organizations, and machine-system developers.
Publication of the specification does not, by itself, grant a license to commercially implement the WebMEM Protocol, use WebMEM trademarks, claim WebMEM conformance, issue WebMEM certifications, distribute official WebMEM tooling, or exercise patent rights that may apply to an implementation.
Documentation License
Except where a WebMEM page, document, repository, file, or other material states otherwise, original WebMEM explanatory documentation identified as licensed documentation is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Licensed documentation may include:
- general protocol explanations;
- educational articles;
- glossary definitions identified as CC BY content;
- conceptual diagrams;
- non-executable illustrative examples;
- and other reference documentation expressly made available under CC BY 4.0.
CC BY 4.0 permits sharing and adaptation of the licensed documentation, including commercial use, subject to the requirements of that license.
The documentation license applies to the licensed expressive material. It does not itself grant implementation, patent, trademark, certification, conformance, or software rights.
Current Protocol Specification
The current WebMEM Protocol under /protocol/ constitutes the current technical specification maintained by WebMEM.
Unless a specific protocol document expressly states that it is licensed under CC BY 4.0 or another identified license, publication of current protocol specification material should not be interpreted as granting rights beyond reading, referencing, quoting as permitted by law, and other uses expressly authorized by WebMEM.
Historical WebMEM materials previously distributed under CC BY 4.0 remain subject to the licenses under which those particular materials were distributed.
Publication of a new version, revision, replacement specification, or new protocol material does not alter licenses previously granted for earlier licensed materials.
Implementation Rights
The right to read or reproduce WebMEM documentation is distinct from the right to implement the WebMEM Protocol.
For purposes of these terms, a WebMEM implementation includes a software system, publishing system, service, platform, plugin, library, generator, pipeline, product, or other technical implementation that uses the WebMEM Protocol as an operational machine knowledge architecture.
This may include implementations of:
- Semantic Data Templates (SDTs);
- WebMEM Fragment Classes;
- WebMEM identity structures;
- WebMEM provenance structures;
- WebMEM relationship structures;
- WebMEM resolution models;
- WebMEM resolver architectures or profiles;
- WebMEM Dataset-to-SDT mapping;
- WebMEM HTML-in-HTML serialization;
- WebMEM validation or conformance systems;
- or combinations of these components forming a WebMEM implementation.
Commercial implementation rights are not granted merely by publication of the specification or by a license covering WebMEM documentation.
Commercial implementation of the current WebMEM Protocol may require a separate written license from WebMEM.
Commercial Implementation
A commercial WebMEM implementation includes use of the protocol in connection with a commercial product, service, publishing operation, platform, subscription, licensing business, advertising-supported service, lead-generation system, commercial data product, or other revenue-producing activity.
Examples may include:
- deploying WebMEM across a commercial publisher’s production website;
- using WebMEM as machine knowledge infrastructure for a commercial information service;
- building commercial directories or catalogs using WebMEM structures;
- providing WebMEM generation, validation, transformation, monitoring, or publishing as a service;
- including WebMEM functionality in commercial CMS software, plugins, libraries, or platforms;
- commercially generating SDTs or WebMEM fragments from databases, APIs, files, or other sources;
- operating commercial resolver infrastructure based on the WebMEM Resolution Model;
- or selling access to products or services whose functionality materially implements the WebMEM Protocol.
Organizations interested in commercial implementation should contact WebMEM regarding applicable licensing.
Research, Evaluation, and Demonstration
WebMEM encourages technical study, academic research, interoperability evaluation, and experimentation with the protocol.
Unless otherwise restricted by an applicable patent, software, dataset, or other license, limited non-production implementations may be used for:
- academic research;
- technical evaluation;
- interoperability testing;
- internal proof-of-concept work;
- non-commercial demonstrations;
- educational instruction;
- and evaluation of whether WebMEM is appropriate for a future licensed implementation.
Research, evaluation, or demonstration rights do not automatically include the right to deploy the resulting implementation as a production commercial service.
Commercial Directories and Catalogs
Commercial directory and catalog implementations remain expressly reserved.
This includes implementations that use WebMEM to organize, generate, publish, resolve, or commercially expose large collections of entities such as:
- health plans;
- healthcare providers;
- pharmacies;
- products;
- business listings;
- public or private services;
- properties;
- professional directories;
- or other large-scale structured catalogs.
Reserved commercial directory and catalog uses may include:
- systematic ingestion of third-party data into WebMEM structures;
- automated generation of indexes, directories, resolvers, or detail resources;
- commercial APIs exposing WebMEM-structured directory knowledge;
- resale or sublicensing of WebMEM-structured directory data;
- and commercial products whose primary value is a WebMEM-structured directory or catalog.
A separate written license may be required for these uses.
Resolver Implementations
The WebMEM Resolution Model and resolver architecture form part of the current WebMEM Protocol.
Commercial systems implementing WebMEM resolvers, resolver profiles, entity-key resolution surfaces, or substantially similar WebMEM resolution architecture may require a separate implementation license.
Examples include:
- identifier-to-entity resolvers;
- entity-to-option-space resolvers;
- geographic resolvers;
- contract or product resolvers;
- formulary or catalog resolvers;
- and commercial systems that use WebMEM structures to expose machine-navigable resolution paths.
Software, Validators, and Tooling
Software published by WebMEM is not automatically licensed under the same terms as WebMEM documentation.
Software may include:
- validators;
- generators;
- CMS or publishing plugins;
- browser extensions;
- command-line tools;
- reference implementations;
- conversion utilities;
- SDKs;
- schemas;
- testing tools;
- and other executable software.
Each software distribution may carry its own license.
Unless an applicable software license expressly grants a right, public availability of source code, examples, schemas, or binaries should not be interpreted as granting commercial redistribution, sublicensing, hosted-service, or derivative-product rights.
Execution Frameworks
Historical WebMEM work included Python-in-HTML and related execution concepts.
Any rights associated with Python-in-HTML execution frameworks, substantially similar embedded-code execution mechanisms, or related implementation methods remain separately reserved unless expressly licensed.
This includes systems that automatically discover, transform, execute, or operationalize embedded Python or Python-equivalent code from web resources.
Non-executable examples, syntax-highlighted illustrations, pseudocode, and static educational references do not by themselves grant execution-framework rights.
Patent Rights
No patent license is granted merely by publication of the WebMEM Protocol, publication of WebMEM documentation, or application of a Creative Commons license to particular copyrighted materials.
Where implementation of WebMEM technology is covered by one or more issued patents or pending patent claims, applicable patent rights remain reserved unless expressly granted under a separate written license.
A documentation license should not be interpreted as an express or implied patent license except to the extent required by applicable law or expressly stated in a separate written agreement.
WebMEM Trademark
WebMEM® is a trademark and is not licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Permission to reproduce WebMEM documentation does not grant the right to use the WebMEM name or mark in a manner that suggests:
- official endorsement;
- certification;
- sponsorship;
- partnership;
- official implementation status;
- or conformance approval by WebMEM.
Referential use of the WebMEM name to accurately identify or discuss the protocol is permitted to the extent allowed by applicable trademark law.
Use of WebMEM branding for products, services, certification programs, training programs, commercial implementations, or claims of official status may require written permission or a trademark license.
Conformance Claims
Public access to the WebMEM specification does not automatically grant the right to market a product or service as:
- “WebMEM Certified”;
- “Certified WebMEM”;
- “Official WebMEM”;
- “WebMEM Approved”;
- or another designation implying certification, approval, endorsement, or official status.
WebMEM may separately define requirements governing descriptive conformance claims, certification marks, compatibility statements, validation status, or official certification.
Certification and conformance programs may be governed by separate terms and fees.
Training and Certification
WebMEM may provide official training, professional education, implementation programs, instructor programs, and certifications.
Public availability of the protocol does not grant the right to issue WebMEM certifications, represent training as official WebMEM training, certify third parties on behalf of WebMEM, or operate a WebMEM certification program.
Those rights are separately reserved.
Third-Party Data and Content
WebMEM does not alter ownership or licensing of third-party data, content, standards, vocabularies, or other source material represented through the protocol.
For example, a WebMEM SDT may contain knowledge derived from a government dataset.
The underlying dataset remains subject to its original terms, while the WebMEM representation, publisher-created derivations, documentation, software, and other materials may be governed separately.
Publishers are responsible for complying with the licenses and terms applicable to source material they represent through WebMEM.
Historical WebMEM 1.x Materials
Some WebMEM 1.x documentation and reference materials were previously published under CC BY 4.0.
Those materials remain subject to the license under which they were originally distributed.
The current WebMEM Protocol represents a substantial architectural revision and should not be assumed to carry the same license merely because an earlier version, explanation, example, or related document was made available under CC BY 4.0.
Where historical materials have been retired, their retired status does not revoke rights previously granted under an applicable license.
Current licensing is determined by the terms applicable to the current material or implementation.
No Implied Rights
Except for rights expressly granted under an applicable license or written agreement, WebMEM reserves all rights in the WebMEM Protocol, specifications, trademarks, software, certification systems, implementation methods, and other proprietary materials to the extent permitted by law.
No license or other right should be implied from:
- publication of a specification;
- availability of documentation;
- availability of example markup;
- publication of schemas;
- publication of diagrams;
- technical discussion of an implementation;
- public demonstration of WebMEM;
- or interoperability with a WebMEM implementation.
Attribution for CC BY Materials
When material expressly licensed under CC BY 4.0 is reused, attribution should identify WebMEM and the applicable source.
A suitable attribution may take the form:
Source: WebMEM
License: CC BY 4.0
https://webmem.com/Adaptations should be identified as required by the CC BY 4.0 license.
Attribution does not imply endorsement, certification, or authorization of an implementation.
How to Request a License
For commercial implementation, directory or catalog use, resolver implementations, software licensing, trademark use, certification, training rights, or other commercial licensing inquiries, contact:
Please include a brief description of:
- the proposed product or implementation;
- the WebMEM components you expect to use;
- whether the implementation will be public, internal, or customer-facing;
- anticipated scale;
- commercial model;
- and expected deployment timeline.
Structured License Metadata
Because different WebMEM materials may be governed by different rights, a single Creative Commons license declaration should not be interpreted as applying automatically to the entire WebMEM Protocol, software ecosystem, implementation architecture, trademarks, or certification system.
Pages or materials expressly licensed under CC BY 4.0 may declare that license individually in their metadata.
The WebMEM License page itself should identify this page as the canonical location for current licensing information.
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"@type": "WebPage",
"@id": "https://webmem.com/license/#license",
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"isPartOf": {
"@type": "WebSite",
"name": "WebMEM",
"url": "https://webmem.com/"
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"about": {
"@type": "TechArticle",
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"publisher": {
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Legal Notes
- This page describes the general licensing framework for WebMEM materials and implementations. Specific materials, software, agreements, or products may be governed by additional or different terms.
- Creative Commons licenses apply only to materials expressly identified as licensed under the applicable Creative Commons license.
- Nothing on this page alters licenses previously granted for historical WebMEM materials.
- Nothing on this page alters the ownership or licensing terms of third-party datasets, content, standards, software, or other materials.
- WebMEM® and related branding are not licensed under Creative Commons licenses.
- Patent rights, where applicable, are not granted except through an express written patent license or other agreement.
- Commercial implementation, certification, conformance, software, training, and trademark rights may be governed by separate agreements.
- WebMEM may publish additional licensing terms, implementation licenses, certification requirements, trademark guidelines, software licenses, or other addenda for particular uses.
Questions About Licensing
The distinction between publicly available documentation and implementation rights is intentional.
WebMEM is published so that its architecture can be examined, discussed, researched, evaluated, and understood. Commercial implementation and use of protected WebMEM technology may be separately licensed.
For questions about whether a proposed use requires a license, contact bynon@yahoo.com before deployment.