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Mark Webbink on software patents

Mark Webbink has been involved in campaigns against software patents and in campaigns to increase patent review efficiency.

During the EU software patents directive, Webbink was the primary lobbyist for Red Hat against software patents. Afterwards, he went on to work for peer-to-patent, a community patent review project.

Accusations of changing sides, 2005

In the final days of the EU software patents directive, there were three possible outcomes: complete win, complete loss, and a middle ground where software would be patentable but there would be an interoperability exception.

While the majority of the anti-swpat campaigns, including FFII, continued to lobby for what would be a complete win, Webbink started lobbying for the middle ground, with representatives of IBM, Google, and Sun.[1] When details of this emerged, Webbink was strongly criticised by some parts of the anti-swpat movement.

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