On your first point, I agree. Software patents are easily distinguishable from others, and I think most people are able to discern the difference. I believe t

On your first point, I agree. Software patents are easily distinguishable from others, and I think most people are able to discern the difference. I believe that's why most of us find their existence so repugnant at first, because we are so familiar with what software is, and how little value is actually contained in the content of a patent. Which bubbles up through our intuition as a red flag. My main issue is that we should examine the why of why we don't like software patents, generalize from it and re-apply that to patents in general. My point is that we'd find it's not software patents in particular that are the problem, it's the fact that we as as society overpay with too much protection for something of so little value. Since we end up paying years of protection for items of so little worth, it stymies innovation in a great many instances, and diverts capital away from innovation and instead to the courts. And yes, I too could rant for days about the lawyers ;^).