The radical transformations brought by information technology have changed the nature of inventions. The application of information technology to majority of disciplines demonstrate a significant difference between the present day inventions from inventions prevalent in industrial age. A complex mix of industrial and informational subject matters such as bioinformatics databases and software often challenge the traditional doctrines of patent doctrines.
The software registration in Colombia, it does in form of author right, what it seems right, as it is a tool need for development of others activities and from this point of view it is not required to register industrial property, as do the patents
The object of patents, at least as seen in the US constitution, is to provide a "temporary" monopoly on an invention to allow the inventor to recoup his/her development costs. Contrary to Ales assertion above, I would argue that this is not a "zero sum game" as an invention worthy of the name should provide benefits to the buyer of the invention which increases the pot of money in the economy. E.g. an ERP system should reduce costs and and increase sales thus increasing the amount of disposable income in a company that theoretically should outweigh the cost of the software. Thus instead of money simply transferring to the producer, the money supply is actually increased so that both the producer and purchaser have increased funds.
The concept of patents was created in the pre-information age time when everything was found in tangible form. It was relatively easy (compared to today to prevent stealing of intellectual capital). Today we have digital goods which are only found in an intangible form and some goods are found in both forms. In this form, it is very difficult to prevent theft of IC. As we know, any form of security can be hacked and thus IC is vulnerable to stealing.
One solution to this problem has been proposed by Eric Raymond. He argues that software should be managed in a "gift" economy. It is provided "free" for the download to the world. In exchange, as the downloader develops extensions or fixes, he/she is to give them back to the community in the form of contributed code to improve the code base. Monetarization is accomplished in a gift economy by selling services related to installation, customization and training etc. Red Hat is an example of this kind of company. This approach eliminates the possibility of IC theft and allows for dissemination to the world and support of the product. What it doesn't do is incent large investments in code development as they would only be returned if the developer does support as well. This would have to be done through the development of large volunteer communities who would agree to complete pieces of code by a certain time.
There are probably other solutions that others way wish to contribute.