"Patents make a lot of sense in many industries; they are needed to protect the designs of industrial equipment, pharmaceutical formulations, biotechnology products and methods, biomedical devices, consumer products (toothpaste, shampoo, contact lenses, etc.), advanced materials & composites, and of course, widgets (lighting fixtures & elements, batteries, toys, tools, etc.). But in software these are just nuclear weapons in an arms race. They don’t foster innovation, they inhibit it. That’s because things change rapidly in this industry...."
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http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/07/why-we-need-to-abolish-software-patents/
What makes patenting in software utterly ridiculous is the 20 years thing. The innovation cycle is just too short these days. If we take this to the extreme (assume all software techniques are patented) then that means that todays engineers would not be able to use anything that was written after 1990 without getting licences. It's just nonsensical.
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