Additional Patent Grant
========================

SCOPE OF THIS GRANT

This grant applies to the Affective Link Scoring (ALS) and Context Path 
Traversal (CPT) algorithms and methods implemented in this software library.

Subject to the terms below, Joseph Evans ("Grantor") hereby grants to any 
person obtaining a copy of this software a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, 
non-exclusive license under Grantor's patent rights that cover the software, 
to make, use, and distribute the software in accordance with the Apache 
License 2.0.


PATENT INFORMATION

The methods and algorithms in this library are covered by:
- U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63/949,166
- Additional patent applications may be pending or filed

Patent Rights Holder: Joseph Evans
Filing Date: See individual patent applications
Status: Patent Pending


PERMITTED USE

The following uses are PERMITTED under this grant:

✓ Academic and Educational Use
  - Research projects at educational institutions
  - Teaching and classroom instruction
  - Thesis and dissertation work
  - Academic publications and papers

✓ Personal and Non-Commercial Use
  - Personal learning and experimentation
  - Open-source projects (non-commercial)
  - Hobby projects and prototypes

✓ Internal Research & Development
  - Internal experimentation at companies
  - R&D prototypes not deployed to customers
  - Evaluation and testing purposes

✓ Publishing and Sharing
  - Publishing research results using this software
  - Sharing modifications with the community
  - Creating derivative works under Apache 2.0


COMMERCIAL USE

Commercial deployment of this software in products or services offered to 
customers, or commercial implementations of the patented methods outside 
this codebase, may require a separate commercial license.

"Commercial deployment" includes:
  - Integration into commercial products or SaaS offerings
  - Use in production systems serving paying customers
  - Commercial licensing or sale of derivative software

If you are unsure whether your use case requires a commercial license, 
please contact: focalways99@gmail.com


ATTRIBUTION & CITATION

While not legally required, attribution is appreciated:

For Software Use:
  Affective RAG Library by Joseph Evans
  https://github.com/jeje1197/AffectiveRAG (Apache 2.0 License)

For Academic Citation:
  Evans, J. (2025). Beyond Semantics: Information Retrieval with Emotion 
  and Time.


TERMINATION

This patent grant terminates if you:
  1. Initiate patent litigation alleging this software infringes your patents
  2. Violate the terms of the Apache 2.0 License
  3. Use the patented methods in violation of this grant


NO WARRANTY

This grant is provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. See the 
Apache 2.0 License for full warranty disclaimers.


QUESTIONS

For commercial licensing inquiries or questions about this patent grant:
  Contact: focalways99@gmail.com
  Patent Holder: Joseph Evans
