My name is on 12 patents. Mostly electronics, though one can be construed as a software patent. I would rather not have my name on most of them, and many result from the same situation you are in.

With my first employer, this was in my original contract years before I gave any thought to it. When I did, I said "no patents, or I quit". I did valuable work, so the quid pro quo extended another 5 years (the sneaky patent attorneys did get a European patent on some of my work, and never told me or my coinventors, but ...). When I finally left, they took out four US patents on the stuff in my notebooks, and threatened legal action if I didn't go along.

Then I helped a startup. They took out three US patents on my work for them. This time, to refuse would have torpedoed the company. In time, the foolish V.C.s torpedoed them anyway (high growth, high profit, market dominance, but the product was hard to explain at IPO - so the VCs made them work on easy-to-explain but low value products).

Then I consulted. I started putting "no patents" into my contracts. With one startup, that resulted in a four month delay in contract approval, resulting in a delay in further work. Which meant the startup was missing essential skills, the prototype failed, and so did the startup.

I learned to make my ideas look like someone else's idea at the clients. There were still some patents filed, but at least my name wasn't on them.

Now I have my own company. With four patents. And three on the way. I hope to release four of them into some kind of "public patents commons" arrangement, if I can find an organization that can leverage them properly into more public patents

I would rather that all patents go away, even if the global abolishment means the three I expect to continue to draw income from go away also. Sadly, in the world I live in, the alternative structures just aren't well developed, so if I don't patent an idea, a competitor will, locking me out of using my own idea. Or a client will treat the work and customization I provide them with as less valuable, because they notice "IP" more than they notice "good product". That is a cultural problem which I cannot fix myself. I hope to help with the fix, though, and I am always looking for alternatives.

I have managed to get a dozen or so potentially patentable ideas released directly into the public domain, mostly through publication in professional journals, and professional standards work. This is the best route available, given the existing situation. So:

Publish. Teach. Participate in standards bodies. Share all the ideas publically that your job permits. Write open source code. Use open source code, and attempt to make it the way things are done where you work. At the end of the day, those who want to contribute ideas to the public should just do it. Frequently. If that is not your job within the organization, morph your job until it is. If you cannot morph your job that way, find a new one elsewhere.

In the golden age of U.S. science, many great ideas were publically shared by scientists and engineers working for private companies. Many Nobel prizes resulted. Companies shared this work because it helped them hire the best, and showed their customers that they did first rate science, leading to first rate products. That age seems to be ending, but I think that is because the researchers value their salaries more than their scientific reputation. Now open source software seems to be heading into that golden age, and it will only stay that way if software innovators value their reputations more than the size of their paycheck. I respect the hell out of these people, and help out where I can. But it is a tough choice, it means forgoing some lucrative jobs, and if you have a family to feed, there is no easy answer. You have to decide whether you want to eat well, or sleep well.