I think what is being patented is important. I mean the software must be a new and useful process, or a new and useful improvement thereof, but software patents are integral to this generation of business and Richards Patent Law has significant experience in protecting software and computer programs.
Westinghouse understood the necessity of impedance matching for efficient transfer of power from source to load and that you could never make DC work over long distances because of the prohibitive loss due to impedance -- which is purely resistive for DC. Westinghouse realized that you would have to step voltage way up to transmit power efficiently and then step it down at the other end and that this would require transformers, and therefore ac, not dc. Edison simply did not understand impedance and the necessity of having to step up the voltage to be able to transmit it with acceptable loss. That's what was at the core of the Edison Westinghouse dispute. Of course Westinghouse was right!