The growing acquisition of increasingly broad patents by nonmanufacturing entities ups the risks of conflict. Improvidently issued patents and submarine patents are a growing threat to rapid deployment of infrastructure based on consensual standards.
Predictor: Kahin, Brian
Prediction, in context:In testimony at a Sept. 22, 1994, public hearing on “Intellectual Property and the National Information Infrastructure,” Brian Kahin, general counsel for the Interactive Media Association, says: ”The real challenge and opportunity of information infrastructure lies in the rich, intelligent fabric between simple transport and simple content that digital technology makes possible: the many modes of interactivity, new ways of accessing information, hybrid forms of communications and publishing … These opportunities involve many issues of pressing concern to multimedia developers: the scope of patentable subject matter; the impact of patents on access to information; patent breadth; patent office operations; and pre-grant publication of patent applications. These are tough, controversial issues, and some of them divide our membership, but they are central to the strategies and policies for realizing the NII … The growing acquisition of increasingly broad patents by nonmanufacturing entities ups the risks of conflict. Improvidently issued patents and submarine patents are a growing threat to rapid deployment of infrastructure based on consensual standards.”
Biography:Brian Kahin was a coauthor of “Public Access to the Internet,” a 1995 collection of papers on Internet-access issues produced by the Harvard Information Infrastructure Project, for which he was founding director. He had helped found the Interactive Multimedia Association in 1988. In the early 1990s, he also was the author or editor of “Building Information Infrastructure (McGraw-Hill, 1992), “The Information Infrastructure Sourcebook” (published by the Harvard Information Infrastructure Project 1993-1995) and “Standards Policy for Information Infrastructure” (with Janet Abbate; MIT Press, 1995). (Research Scientist/Illuminator.)
Date of prediction: September 22, 1994
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Role of Govt./Industry
Name of publication: The Report of the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights Information Infrastructure Task Force
Title, headline, chapter name: Testimony on Intellectual Property and the National Information Infrastructure
Quote Type: Partial quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.ifla.org/documents/infopol/copyright.ima.txt
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Meyer, Jennifer Marie