This strikes me as an excellent point, how software patents tend to lack any actual solution, unlike traditional patents - I hadn't considered that before.
I think the process of accepting patents is broken, at least with software. If a reasonable practitioner could read some head-line and come up with a few solutions, there is not anything worth protecting. Ideas themselves should not be patentable in software.
On other hand I do think there is still need to protect innovation in more physical things. Like new manufacturing processes or material innovations like using novel chemistry.
I don't really see any fundamental difference between implementing your idea with big pieces of iron and implementing your idea with small pulses of electricity. If either is patentable, both should be.
Question is what sort of ideas deserve patent? Does one-click checkout deserve one? Or system to sell modifications of look of user interface delivered over radio?
I think there should be some line, probably non-obvious implementation.
