This seems to be a moment when the useful arts have an especially compelling economic rationale.
In the US, the Patent Act of 1790 was founded "to promote the useful arts".
But the Greeks made no distinction, as we do, between the useful arts and the fine arts.
Copyrights are granted and patents are issued in order "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts".
This embodies the sole purpose of the patent system, which as the Constitution puts it, is "to promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts".
They provided for the patent system in Article I of the Constitution, in order to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts".
The constitution grants Congress the power to grant copyrights and patents only for "limited times" in order to "promote the progress of science and the useful arts".
Eighty years later, America's founders expanded on this, giving Congress the authority to enact copyright laws "to promote the progress of science and useful arts".
In Eldred v. Ashcroft, he argued that the Constitution intended copyright protection "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts".
He was also concerned about teaching youth the useful arts and sciences so that they might "become profitable instruments of the Commonwealth".
"Were it otherwise," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in the opinion, "patents might stifle, rather than promote, the progress of useful arts".
