I'm not sure how the UK avoided software patents before now based on this argument though. As in: - literally implement ANN in hardware - patent it - someone

I'm not sure how the UK avoided software patents before now based on this argument though. As in: - literally implement ANN in hardware - patent it - someone emulates your patented design in software (or even hardware of some parts slightly abstracted to make "emulation" of your patent fast). What happens now? Either all emulatable hardware patents are useless, or there's a backdoor into software patents (synthetically put it in hardware first).