Take the 2-minute tour ×  Please note: here I'm talking strictly
about US Patents.  I tried reading up on software and patents
and still am not quite "getting" how the two are related, and
when a software system can be patented, and when it cannot.  For
one, source code is copryrightable regardless of whether or not
it can be patented - this much I get (sourcecode is a work of
art).  But for a patent to be approved, three major criteria
must be met:    • It must be novel   • It must be non-obvious
• It must be useful  However, when it comes to software and
algorithms, these lines seem to get very blurry, and I'm not
sure why. It seems to me that, based on these criteria, anytime
someone writes a new type of software that the world has never
before seen (i.e. MySpace for social networking, the first
firewall, the first public cloud, etc.) that they would be
patent candidates. But that doesn't seem to be the case.  So I
ask: why isn't a SaaS/PaaS/IaaS patentable as a novel/non-
obvious/useful concept? When the