[joe_the_user]

I agree.

But to take note of the stakes here, banning software patents fully would eventually end patents as such. The problem for the patents in general is that nearly all machine methods are going toward a general purpose machine, a computer, telling a robot what to do. So all innovations here are going to eventually be expressed as software (even if they involve innovations chemical reactions or factory automation).

I think it will be better ending this system but there are a lot of companies whose intellectual capital is tied up in patents and these will fight hard to postpone this end.