@Jonathan V. I came out of years of lurking to respond to your comment. The problem is your underlying assumption that your ideas are a property that you should be able to own, keep others from using, earn revenue from, and that you alone could devise. I think this is an unrealistic and counterproductive way of looking at the world.

Shouldn't your coming up with novel, useful ideas be proof enough to an employer that you may come up with more in the future, thus earning you a nice salary? Or if you don't like the idea of an employer, contracts and commissions?

The idea of a lone inventor making it rich from a patented invention is a myth of American elementary schools. Even if an individual comes up with patentable idea on their own- software or otherwise- the expected pay out is through selling the idea to a corporation.

Corporate patents don't promote innovation, again and again the news shows them being used as a weapon against competitors. They are used to quash innovation.