HALL OF FAME / inventor profile

Robert Elliot Kahn
Born December 23, 1938

System for Distributed Task Execution
Patent Number 6,574,628

Inducted 2006

Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf created the architecture for the Internet and collaborated on the design of software – known as the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, or TCP/IP – that implements the architecture.

Invention Impact

In collaboration with Vinton Cerf, a computer scientist, he created the Internet architecture, which allows multiple heterogeneous networks (and their computers) to communicate with each other.Their work resulted in a protocol, now known as TCP/IP, that implemented key elements of the architecture. Beginning in 1983, TCP/IP became the standard host protocol on the Arpanet; it was one of the first three networks to be connected in the Internet , thus enabling applications ranging from e-mail and instant messaging to the World Wide Web.

Robert Kahn envisioned the Internet as an open, accessible collection of networks operated cooperatively. Based on Kahn’s Open Architecture concepts, Cerf and Kahn invented their first design they called TCP in 1974. The design allowedARPA’s Packet Radio, Packet Satellite and ARPANET networks to interconnect and interwork seamlessly. TCP/IP became the required way to use the ARPA-sponsored packet networks beginning in 1983. It allowed arbitrary collections of packet networks to evolve into the Internet, enabling applications ranging from e-mail, streaming audio and video to the World Wide Web.

Inventor Bio

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Kahn earned his B.E.E. degree in electrical engineering from the City College of New York before gaining his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees at Princeton University. Prior to joining the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, Kahn designed the first communication network, known as ARPANET, which was based on a new technique called “packet switching” that enabled heterogeneous distributed computers to exchange packets of data.

In 2004, Kahn received the Turing Award with Cerf for their pioneering work on the Internet.


© 2006 National Inventors Hall of Fame