Most software patents are trivial and broad.
The reasons are to be found in the patent system itself rather than in the insufficiencies of the examination process. On the one hand, the requirement of inventivity is dead and cannot be revived within the existing system. It will be much more difficult to find even a single patent on a method that a programmer would consider worthy of admiration. Some people say that this is because the patent offices do not do their job well. Some have been prophesying for a decade that is only a matter of time until this problem will be solved.