[jolene_brain]

"Meanwhile, computer software is eligible for copyright protection, making patents unnecessary to reward software innovation."

Copyright protection doesn't provide the author protection from their ideas being copied and distributed by other entities. Copyrights only ensure that a specific embodiment of an idea (e.g. source code) is protected from being redistributed without the author's consent. Patents, on the other hand, do provide protection to an inventor for their ideas.

Movies and music as discrete, creative works are not patent-able. But novel methods for creating movies and music can certainly be patented. The same is true for software. The code itself isn't eligible for patent application, but the ideas behind them are. And I think the author of the linked article disingenuously conflates the two ideas in order to advance their argument.

Let's say a programmer invents a new method for quickly factoring prime numbers and develops it into a C library and begins selling it. I buy a license to use the library and eventually figure out how it works. Software copyrights prevent me from redistributing the original library, but I can create my own based on that programmer's idea and distribute it as my own. However, if that programmer patents their factoring process, then they have protection against my new implementation from undercutting theirs.

Patents can provide protection to entities that have invested heavily in researching and developing their ideas by preventing someone else from reaping their benefits. Likewise, they can foster innovation by forcing other entities to solve similar problems in novel ways. But that's not really what's happening with software patents right now. The system obviously needs to be modernized, but that can't happen without an honest debate from both sides.