Also, consider how ‘clean room reverse engineering’ works, where one group takes a program’s code (which should be ‘copyrighted’), creates an interface removing all actual logic, and then gives that interface to a second group that is able to program new code without ever seeing the original, thus never infringing on a ‘copyright’, even if (this part debatedly) they code it the same way again. This is legit, but if patents applied to software as they do to physical creations, this should not. The very legal presidents out there don’t make sense when you look at it as a patent.

The only logical things to apply to software are copyright and trade-secret. A copyright would prevent someone from duplicating a software, but would not prevent someone from creating a competitor. A trade-secret would work on the same principle, preventing copies, but would also prevent anything too similar from appearing. Of course, trade-secrets are only as good as the protection given by the holder, they can be dissolved entirely by simple carelessness.

I am reminded of Apple’s patent for an ‘interface device that uses touch’ that they tried to use to stop anyone else from having a multi-touch display system.

The clients are out there. I don’t see this having any effect on the users.