I think the real problem is how the patent systems works today. Once meant to protect scientific investments, it does to often protects simple ideas many people would come (came) up with in no much time when confronted with a given problem.
Additionally there is the problem, that software related technology has become so complex and fast changing, that it is hard for a patent agency to know what a patent actually covers and if it should not be issued due to priority art.
E.g. modern smartphones are just a specific case of a (kinda) general purpose computer and a cloud is just a computation cluster. Nevertheless you can get patents for "the cloud" you wouldn't get for a computation cluster.
Btw. I like comparing software patents with patents on concepts and story lines of novels, both can be argued for but both are a very bad idea ;-)