As reported in Information Week on February 18, 2011, the protective value of software patents was weighed against their potential for stifling innovation in code creation in a Wednesday debate that featured the Free Software Foundation versus a patent attorney and a venture capitalist.
While the debate was reportedly won by patent proponents according to a vote taken of those in attendence, it may have been that the the audience was over-weighted with pro-patent forces, to be fair to the anti-patent side of this long-standing difference of opinion that has gone on unabated for the last thirty years.
Here is a link to the Information Week story:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/enterprise_apps/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229218910