You seem to think that WO patents, the answer is different for hardware and software. Why?

Because software companies have shown repeatedly that it's possible to bring something innovative to market for much less than $1M, and the exceptions usually occur when the innovation builds upon previously patented (and expensive to license) technology. This discourages small independent development in favour of larger companies, which is probably the crux of the problem as I see it.

Manufacturing and marketing a new physical device, on the other hand, can rarely be done for less than $1M (or rather, for applications of comparable complexity I think it is fair to say that producing a software widget will almost always involve less initial overhead than a hardware widget, especially at market scale).

That's where my assumptions come from. I know that trade secrets can't be used in every situation, and I accept that software patents may make sense in a minority of cases. I still think we'd be better off without them.

At any rate, I can see this conversation continuing for a long time, and I don't think it will accomplish anything, so this will be my last comment on the thread. Thank you though (sincerely) for your intelligent discourse.