Nice quote from Emery Simon, representative of the Business Software Alliance, during a 2005 conference over software patents (see p19):
There was a time when software companies hated the patent law and wanted it to go
away and did not want software patents to be issued. I think there are some within
the industry that still feel that way, but as a real pragmatic matter, they are here and
they are here to stay, and everybody deals with the reality, and all software companies
now apply for patents.