Here is an excellent comment attached to a recent story posted on Slashdot:

So why are people – especially those in the industry – opposed to software patents? It’s not because they don’t think software is inventive. It’s because they think that the patents are a drag on the industry. That they’re pointless at best, and actively harmful at worse. And comparing us to our foreign rivals who lack these patents seems to confirm this.

I couldn’t agree more. Patents on imaginary property like software, genes, mathematical formulas, numbers, etc. do far more to stifle innovation than they do to encourage it.