OK. It's probably more common in folklore than in real life, but I was thinking of the situation where mass production was the hard part, for example, where a l

OK. It's probably more common in folklore than in real life, but I was thinking of the situation where mass production was the hard part, for example, where a lone inventor comes up with a process or design, but does not publicly disclose it because of fears that someone else (with better ability to mass produce) would capitalize on it. So I agree that patents (and the extent of their protection) makes sense for things that are "hard and expensive", in software as in other fields. But it seems like many software patents that get discussed are for things that did not require a lot of work; the 20-year monopoly seems to be a disproportionate reward just for being first, regardless of the work involved.