John R. Ackermann is Law Vice President and Chief Counsel of the Worldwide Customer Services Law Group at NCR Corporation in Dayton, Ohio. He is admitted to practice in Wisconsin and Ohio.

In his role as WCS Chief Counsel, Mr. Ackermann is responsible for all the legal affairs of NCR’s $2 billion service business.

Mr. Ackermann has practiced in the various disciplines known as "computer law" since 1985. He has a particular interest in software licensing and other copyright-related issues, and the emerging law of the Internet. An adjunct professor at the University of Dayton School of Law, he teaches a course on “Licensing Intellectual Property.” He has also been an instructor at the University’s "Computer and Cyberspace Law" program on several occasions and has been a member of the Steering Committee for that program since 1992. He is a member of the International Technology Law Association, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the American Civil Liberties Union. He also has a strong background in general commercial contracting and in a former life was a litigator specializing in media and First Amendment law.

In addition to his professional involvement with computer law, Mr. Ackermann has a strong hands-on interest in technology. He maintains a Linux-based computer network (presently with more than a dozen machines) at his home. His servers host the web sites of several non-profit organizations, as well as his personal web site (http://www.febo.com) and several mailing lists. He does not claim to be a proficient programmer, but knows how to create syntax errors in C, Perl, Python and, long ago, in Pascal and BASIC. He is an avid ham radio operator and is past president of an international amateur radio organization that is dedicated to research and development of advanced communications techniques. He is a frequent presenter about these technologies at amateur radio conferences both in the United States and abroad.

Courses
LAW 6420 Licensing Intellectual Property