I am of the opinion that software patents stifle innovation, slow or halt progress in software design, and serve as an unjust, money-making cash cow for little effort.

This might be the writers opinion, but the same observation might have been made for all patents. Unfortunately many industries rely on patents to operate (e.g. pharmaceutical) in which patents clearly do NOT stop innovation. To make an observation like this requires an explanation of why software is so different or why the patents that ARE being granted in software are totally unlike those granted for medications in which huge quantities of cash have been invested. The latter seems a more likely attack vector. Use infamous examples such as the "one click" patent as examples of something in which there was almost no investment and which, if valid, would have resulted in large, undeserved income. The prime reason for fearing software patents is the fear that the patent office would permit thousands of obvious, trivial and ultimately unenforceable patents - which clearly they are in the process of doing. Even if the patents are unenforceable, if held by rich organisations they are unassailable by smaller, innovative companies.

phrase "and serve as an unjust, money-making cash cow for little effort."
should be dropped, it soundy envy-childish and "little effort" is not true, because
the software-developement-process is inflated with big juristiv efforts to circumvent
collisions with other patents.
And enrolling an own REASONABLE patent today is also cluttered with a lot of juristic
work.
So you can say, money is drawn out of the productive software developing process and
put into juristic work of some highly specialized law firms.
Because the financial efforts for all of this increases significantly, probably for a
few times, a lot of software projects become totally uneconmic.