What is ment by software pattent ? Patenting a method used in software ? People hear about patent trials but not when startups get their business model copied

What is ment by software pattent ? Patenting a method used in software ? People hear about patent trials but not when startups get their business model copied or stolen by bigger companies. They don't make any noise when they are smashed like moskitos. In one story I've hear of first hand witness from the bad guy side was that they didn't simply trick them into explaining their secret sauce recepie, they also phone the bank and their investors to stop fnancing them. They where big enough to do that. If they had pattented their method for mobile phone geolocalsation in 1999 in absence of gps at the time, things would have probbly run differently. Patent troll is bad, but when it is for the initial idea of it, that is protecting its inventor during the process of creating the business around it, then I think it's fair. Maybe 20 yeas is s bit long consdeing computing technology evolution.