Patently obvious...

The patent saga between Blackberry and NTP shows the European Parliament in no uncertain terms why software patents are just plain wrong!
We can argue all day about the merits of the NTP patents, whether they were too general or whether they had some merit, but we just come back to the same conclusion.
The only people who benefit from the whole software patent nonsense are blood-sucking (is there any other type?) lawyers!
There is a huge difference between patents and copyright, it is clear that people should not be allowed to profit from copying something done previously, but that is ensured through copyright laws. Patents are abused by shell companies that play the system.
In my view patents should only be granted in very rare circumstances, when it is absolutely crystal clear that it is not prior art or recombination of prior art. The patent offices do an extremely poor job of assessing originality, but just because something is original doesn't mean it deserves a patent! Richard Stallman describes the problem better than I could.