Software patents are unnecessary. Copyrights prevent software from being copied, unless the original author permits it. If you write software and don't want someone to copy it, that system already works. If someone figures out another way to implement the same thing with their own unique code, that's perfectly fine too, as it should be.
Functional devices can't be copyrighted, so we have patents instead - if you publicly document the workings (implementation) of a widget via a patent, in exchange you get a temporary legal monopoly for producing it. If someone comes up with a different method for doing the same thing they quite likely won't infringe the patent. If you don't patent it then anyone is free to copy or adapt the implementation.
Software patents on the other hand often prevent others from implementing something even if they don't have access to the inner workings (source code) and come up with their own unique implementation. This concept is absurd and is why patents don't translate well to software. Perhaps if software patents made working example source code a mandatory part of submission then they would better reflect their traditional counterparts, so that others would be able to invent their own non-infringing implementations.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
