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.
External links
- A New Paradigm For Intellectual Property Rights In Software, by Webbink, May 2005
- Packaging Open Source, a paper which looks briefly at various free software licence patent clauses, December 2009
- 2005 interview, about the proposed Patent Reform Act in the USA
