Lobby. Really.
Be the guy who writes letters to his congress person and senator. All the time, every time.
Form groups.
Stop complaining about it on an internet forum, get together in real life, and talk to people. Not "random like-minded techies". Go meet with your senators or congressmen. They take meetings from constituents. You'll probably end up talking to an LA or something, but if you
all do it, it'll start to have an impact. Tell them exactly how much money you are spending, and how much time you are wasting, worrying about this stuff. Form lobbying groups, and advocate.
There are other effective things than the above, it's just an example.
One of the reasons I became a lawyer, instead of just a software engineer, is because it was clear to me, even 15 years ago, that patents were going to destroy our industry.
It was also clear that the majority of software engineers would do one of three things:
1. Pretend it did not matter.
2. Dismiss the threat until it became huge.
3. Complain about it on Usenet (now "random blogs, internet forums, and social media sites").
It took a long time to get to the point it is now.
It will, realistically, take a long time to get to a better point. Yes, everyone has a quick fix solution, like "ban software patents" or "pray the federal circuit/supreme court saves us from years of bad policy and legal decisions". These are all long shots. They may happen. But it's all short term plays. You need the long term play as well, in the background, in case these don't work out.
People have this weird idea that the content industry/etc simply backed up a truck of money to congress people and got the laws they wanted. Instead, they spend 20+ years meeting with politicians, advocating their position, forming lobbying groups, and slowly winning politicians over. They showed (mostly fake) economic benefit, had studies done, kept harping them over and over. Certainly they donated, but if you think it was simply because they gave some congressman some money, you don't understand how things get done.
If you want to stop software patents, you need to take this long term approach as well. Don't get me wrong, I hope the supreme court reigns in the federal circuit as well.
But if you want real change, it often takes time. At least in the current world, there is a 0% chance this change will happen if the only action is to write comments about news stories on internet sites.