"I'm not really into this legal stuff but to me software patents is kinda redundant when you have copyright."
Nope. If big companies like M$ don't own patents of their software, small companies, shareware authors or free software hackers will be big threats to their hegemony as they will be able to resymble the same thing in their 'small' softwares.
nowadays even the idea of using browser cookies can also be owned.