We call them inventors, and part of the motivation for inventors is the patent system. I do not understand why you would now exclude them from the patent system because they choose to implement certain inventions in software rather than hardware.
Many people feel that important new inventions going forward are going to be done in software.
Hardware is a relatively mature field. I would also remind you that the examination process, imperfect as it may be, attempts to grant patents only for novel, nonobvious inventions. Your comment about the term of protection raises another issue. U.S. Patents have a maximum life of 17 years after issue. We may be headed that direction.