Software patents are patents, why do you keep claiming otherwise?
Quit being obtuse to avoid your losing. Saying I don't like the Ford Focus is not saying I don't like all Ford cars.
Software patents are a type of patent, and a type that neither I nor Stallman believe should exist. We have no problem with real non-software patents.
Read the history. Until 1981, the USPTO rightfully said that software couldn't be patented. Then a company sued (Diamond v. Diehr), and won, the Supreme Court deciding that software could be patented in this case because it was part of a larger actual physical process.
That was the foot in the door.
Because of that decision, by the mid 90s some software could be patented, but there was confusion. But 1998's State Street Bank & Trust v. Signature Financial Group opened the door wide open, any software can now be patented, often for the most trivial solution to a problem.
GE, thank you for supporting judicial activism, helping to ruin our patent system and software industry (even proprietary software). Eolas should not have been able to sue Microsoft.