I dunno. "Hardware" patents allow for people to design something that would require millions of dollars of manufacturing equipment, and still get paid. I think the point of hardware patents is to allow the inventor to license that technology out to companies that have the capability to manufacture the hardware.

Software patents don't have anything like that. All it takes for someone to implement a piece of software is a cheap laptop and time. Everyone can write software (or rather, everyone has the financial capability to do so).