The software patent forces are on the ropes and they are now staging a full on PR campaign to try to stem the tide of professional sentiment against them. It's not going to work, because at heart, software patents are simply a bad idea.
My thoughts are software patents are easily distinguishable from other patents, that the EU has no problem distinguishing them, that in theri very nature they impede progress because in software everything builds on everything else very quickly and that's why there IS rapid progress in software, progress the consumer is the beneficiary of and which also creates a very fertile business climate for companies to create products that turn profits.
The other way, it's all about lawyers and their hourly fees and innovation- and in the end business itself- suffers, except of course for the business of lawyering.
Lawyers are a virus who have injected themselves into an industry and a sphere of human activity they have no place in and was doing astonishingly well both in terms of innovation and economic activity before they showed up/