I'm all for the concept of patents to protect inventors and inventions. BUT... IMO... this isn't an invention. It's an idea / concept. I would love to see real patent reform such that (1) ideas and processes are not generally patentable, (2) patents have specific implementation requirements, (3) multiple approaches to the same problem don't infringe.
I could be wrong about these, but regardless... something has to change.
I would love it to be that the CODE that implements the idea become the thing that is copyrighted/patented, but I guess that would just mean that a subtle change in the code would allow somebody else to implement it. I manufacture electronics and this has been the problem in circuit design for years. You can copyright a schematic drawing of a circuit and the layout of a PCB itself, but you can't the circuit itself. Change a couple of resistor values and it is a different circuit.