Vast majority of software patents are maybe a month of work. There is some reason to want something that takes years of research to be protected but basically

Vast majority of software patents are maybe a month of work. There is some reason to want something that takes years of research to be protected but basically nothing software is that. > I disagree. Patents are a good idea and mostly aren't that bad (you mainly hear about the bad ones). I'd wager if you removed bad and the trivial ones a lot of them would be gone. Filter out ones that could be clean roomed by competent engineer in a week and 95% of them would be gone.