Patents were meant to protect the person who invented a particular physical object or physical process. Patenting software amounts to patenting algorithms, whi

Patents were meant to protect the person who invented a particular physical object or physical process. Patenting software amounts to patenting algorithms, which is basically patenting math. It's far broader in scope by its very nature. On top of that, it's not hard to get software patents on things that are obvious, often by simply patenting "$well_established_process, but in software".