Software patents "loss" perhaps?

I have been watching the controvery behind some of the insane "patents" on software, business processes, and combinations thereof, and today I finally saw some hope of sanity in a Supreme Court ruling (in favor of Microsoft of all people, when the Open Source Software, OSS, community may actually be one of the largest beneficiaries).

Check out the news release here: Microsoft wins Supreme Court Software Patent Case.

What's really intersting abou this case is how it "apparently affirmed Microsoft's arguments that software coupled with the device on which the software is installed cannot be considered patentable". This may seem like common sense to most of us, but for some reason it wasn't common sense in the patent office for many years of recent.

Most importantly, this at least sets some precedence for challenging the overall patentability of software in general. I'll be waiting for the full ruling release text from the court to be published, but in the meantime, many are looking at this and saying things like "by Microsoft’s victory, the whole notion that software is patentable will be open to challenge, and the language in this morning’s decision will be cited in those challenges".

Even though I create software for a living, I am not for software patents! So, trust me, I am not being hipocritical and wanting patents on my own code and not wantint patents for Microsoft or others. I just think they are a ridiculous thing when applied to software or "business processes". To me, nearly every "business process" patent I have seen has been nothing short of fricking obvious stuff, which goes completely against the underlying principle of patents to begin with. Same with most "software patents" - obvious stuff over and over, especially obvious extensions to existing themes.

Bottom line: if you are a software company and can't create any real value and unique selling proposition aside from patent-enforcement, you really don't have much to sell. I personally think that barrier-to-entry is more than enough protection (meaning, I'm not worried about others competing with my software when I know I have a great product that would take someone else a lot of effort to try to duplicate). So, down with software patents (and business process patents) already!