Software engineer & founder of @RailsBridge and @LivableCode. Currently stirring the pot at @SalesforceUX. She/her. 
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Most large companies encourage their designers & engineers to file software patents. However many only use them "defensively" - i.e., when threatened with infringement action by another company, they find a patent they own that the threatener is infringing.
It's a useless cold war. Time to invalidate all sitting software patents and refuse to grant new ones.
Because just like the historical cold war, the real losers are the small players - in this case, the startups & small companies who can't afford to amass a huge patent portfolio. Software patents discourage innovation and encourage corporate consolidation.
Remember - Oracle bought Sun 100% for its patents. Oracle didn't (and still doesn't) give two shits about any of Sun's products or people.
Fun fact: in New Zealand in 2013, we removed the ability to patent software designed for a general purpose machine.
I've tended to feel the answer is rather "patent what you like, but software can't infringe". Yes, there are edge cases around what's software and what's firmware...
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