Either:
completely end software patents.
Or: severely lower their length of time from 20 years for a utility patent, 15 years for a GUI design patent, etc., to something like 5 years, or less (enough time for a company like Apple to have released the iPhone and gain a huge market share before another company like Google would have been allowed to release Android). AND; make it so that someone with a patent must release software utilizing it within a period of, say, 1-1.5 year(s), or-else; lose it! - end Patent Trolls!
Negative Effects of Software Patents:
-anxiety (severe if you come across a patent that covers some great idea you have, and have possibly already worked hard to create; with Yuge hope, optimism, & drive suddenly dashed at the unknowns of patent licensing, no money to actually do that or to hire a lawyer - and if the owning company/person will even allow liceansing)
-learning how-to, & time-spent, searching patent databases & understanding the legal concepts.
-Patent Trolls; people & companies that create & buy patents with no intention of actually building a product/software; horrendous leaches with often broad patents that they can attack just about any software/website/app/… with.
Solo at-home developers have to deal with a ton of anxiety having to think about the possibility of being attacked by Patent Trolls, and learning how to search through patents & decide if some vague software patent may cover what you are making. Some of us have a great idea, but then discover that some big corporation’s R&D department has a patent that covers a huge swath of your idea - whether the corporation has released a product, or not (more often the case): well known that in the early days of Microsoft, they/B.Gates ruthlessly took down competition - forcing sell-outs or flat-out legal bulldozing them; very likely leading them to having a near monopoly on Operating Systems for several decades - instead of competitors emerging & us having a wider variety of OS’ to choose from. Social Networks are also near-monopolies b/c of their 20+ year patents; Google seems to have patents related to their now defunct Google Plus social network that extend into the 2030s - it seems like they waited as long as they possibly could before filing some of the patents (or, the patent office just took years?) - basically causing a 20year patent to last even longer than 20years; stifling anyone without the money to license their patents, if they’ll even allow it, from making a website, or app, with similar elements.