The UK High Court has ruled that the British Patent Office is wrong to reject software patents, and should go in the general direction of the European Patent Office, and allow patents for software implemented inventions if they have a technical effect.
See http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4732f070-cbb2-11dc-97ff-000077b07658.html for more details.
One advantage of this, is that the British Patent Office is generally much faster at examining that the EPO.
I believe that there is no real justification to regard computer inventions as different from inventions in other fields. If there is novelty, inventiveness and utility (technical effect ;-), the software patent should be allowed.
Copyright in its current form where it lasts for decades, is not an appropropriate tool to protect software. Also, it is the basic idea that requires protection, not the implementation thereof.
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