Comment Re:The problem is specificity (Score 1) 274
I think software patents could be fine as long as they are specific to a SINGLE IMPLEMENTATION of an algorithm or idea. If your patent was implemented in C++, then the same algorithm implemented in Perl or even COBOL SHOULD NOT BE COVERED.
In some cases, translating from language-X to language-Y is a straightforward line-by-line-with-a-few-additions conversion. The patent would not be of much value since anyone could just use the reference implementation and translate it to very-similar-language. This would possibly mean that the original "inventor" would start patenting the same algorithm implemented in sevaral programming languages, as long as the conversion is simple and/or has little cost.
(And I'm not defending the patents system.)