BRIAN
KAHIN
Brian Kahin is Visiting Professor at the
University of Michigan with joint appointments in the School of Information,
the Ford School of Public Policy, and the Department of Communication
Studies. His
current research focuses on patent policy and codification-based
infrastructure; it includes a study for
the University of Michigan Provost’s Office on open content, open technology,
and intellectual property.
Kahin was formerly Director of the Center for Information Policy and Visiting
Professor in the College of Information Studies at the University of Maryland,
with affiliate appointments in the School of Public Affairs and the R.H. Smith
School of Business. Kahin’s work at the Center included projects on open
source software, U.S. and European perspectives on information process patents,
and the economic and social implications of information technology. He was principal organizer and chair of
the Transforming Enterprise conference, held at U.S. Department
of Commerce in January 2003.
From March 1997 to January 2000, Kahin
served as Senior Policy Analyst at the White House
Office of Science and Technology Policy, where he was responsible for
issues in intellectual property, Internet policy, and electronic
commerce. As part of the Administration’s task force on global electronic
commerce, he initiated the interagency Working Group on the Digital Economy and
chaired it on behalf of the National
Economic Council. He also served as Vice Chair of the OECD Working
Party on the Information Economy. He was the first chair of the
interagency working group on domain names and worked with the research agencies
and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to develop the Administration’s
position on database protection legislation. He initiated studies on
patent quality and standards
policy at the Science
and Technology Policy Institute. After leaving government service, he
was the first (and only) resident fellow at the Internet Policy Institute in
Washington and a visiting scholar at the Berkeley Roundtable on the
International Economy (University of California, Berkeley) before joining
the faculty at the University of Maryland in August of 2000.
Kahin was previously
founding director of the Information
Infrastructure Project at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of
Government. Initiated by Kahin and Lewis Branscomb in 1989, the
Information Infrastructure Project was the first academic research program to
address the social, economic, and policy implications of the Internet.
The Project was supported by a mix of special funding from foundations and
federal agencies and general funding from corporations, including Bellcore,
AT&T, IBM, Hughes, Motorola, EDS, Nynex, Digital Equipment, Apple, and
Microsoft. It developed an aggressive publishing program and collaborated
with a wide range of institutions, including the Global
Information Infrastructure Commission, the Coalition
for Networked Information, the Freedom
Forum, the Annenberg Washington
Program, the Library
of Congress, the Cross-Industry Working Team,
the Computer Systems Policy Project, and the
International Telecommunication Union.
Active in the early multimedia industry, Kahin helped found the Interactive Multimedia Association in 1987 and served as General Counsel on a part-time basis for ten years. He directed the IMA's Intellectual Property Project, which focused on technology-based management of content. He managed testimony on patent policy, negotiated the IMA’s participation in the European IMPRIMATUR consortium, and organized public programs with the U.S. Copyright Office. (The IMA merged with the Software Publishers Association in 1997.)
Kahin’s work has been supported by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the John and Mary R. Markle Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the U.S. Department of Energy. He authored the principal Internet RFC on commercialization of Internet (RFC 1192; 1990). He is the editor of Building Information Infrastructure (McGraw-Hill/Primis, 1992) and co-editor of Public Access to the Internet, (with James Keller; MIT Press, 1995), Standards Policy for Information Infrastructure (with Janet Abbate; MIT Press, 1995), National Information Infrastructure Initiatives (with Ernest Wilson; MIT Press, 1996), Borders in Cyberspace (with Charles Nesson; MIT Press, 1997), Coordinating the Internet (with James Keller; MIT Press, 1997), Internet Publishing and Beyond (with Hal Varian, MIT Press, 2000), and Understanding the Digital Economy (with Erik Brynjolfsson, MIT Press, 2000).
As Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at the Kennedy School, Kahin developed courses on information technology, law and policy and information infrastructure. He initiated a joint course with Harvard Business School on information technology, business strategy and public policy and then, with Harvard Law School as a third partner, a course on business and the Internet.
Kahin was appointed to the U.S. Advisory Committee on International Communications and Information Policy in 1995 and chaired the Committee's Working Group on Intellectual Property, Interoperability and Standards until he joined the government. He was a member of the 1992-94 Association of American Universities Task Force on a National Strategy for Managing Scientific and Technical Information. He was cited by Newsweek as one of the "Net 50" of 1995.
Kahin has served on the board of Telecommunications Policy Research Conference, the editorial advisory boards of the Boston University Journal of Science & Technology Law and Cyberspace Lawyer, and the advisory board of the Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities. He was on the original steering committee for the Software Patent Institute (1990-91) and served on the advisory board until 1997. He was co-editor of the journal Information Infrastructure and Policy (IOS Press) from 1994 to 1996.
As a consultant, Mr. Kahin's clients have included EDUCOM (now EDUCAUSE), the Council on Library Resources, and the U. S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment. As an attorney, he served as principal counsel to FARNET (Federation of American Research Networks) and the International Interactive Communications Society, the society for professionals in multimedia.
In 1983-85, Mr. Kahin was coordinator for
the Research Program on Communications Policy
at MIT and the MIT Communications
Forum under Ithiel de Sola Pool. Kahin has also been director of an
arts and technology project for a state arts agency, executive director of a
media arts organization, lawyer in general practice, and screenwriter. He
received a B.A. from Harvard College in 1969 and a J.D. from Harvard Law School
in 1976. He has been a member of the Wyoming State Bar since 1976.