"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries"
This is what patents are for. In the case of software, they are having the opposite affect - they discourage innovation.
Patents are not bad. Patents that are given too broadly, try to patent outcome instead of technology (one click) and that are simple solutions to a problem are bad.
If I don't need your disclosure to reproduce the invention - it should not be patentable.