Useful art, or useful arts or technics, is concerned with the skills and methods of practical subjects such as manufacture and craftsmanship. The phrase was used during the

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the reign of Queen Victoria, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. Slightly different definitions are sometimes used. The era followed the ...

and earlier as an antonym to the performing art and the

fine art In European academic traditions, fine art (or, fine arts) is made primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from popular art, decorative art or applied art, which also either serve some practical function (such as ...

. The term "useful Arts" is used in the

United States Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the Supremacy Clause, supreme law of the United States, United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, on March 4, 1789. Originally includi ...

, Article One, Section 8, Clause 8, which is the basis of United States

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

and

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...

law:

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;..."

According to the

US Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all Federal tribunals in the United States, U.S. federal court cases, and over Stat ...

, the phrase "useful Arts" is meant to reference inventions. There is controversy in the Court as to whether or not this includes business methods. In the majority opinion for '' In re Bilski'',In re Bilski, 545 F.3d 943, 88 U.S.P.Q.2d 1385 (2008) Justice Anthony Kennedy states "the Patent Act leaves open the possibility that there are at least some processes that can be fairly described as business methods that are within patentable subject matter under §101." At the appellate level, Federal Circuit Court Judge Mayer disagreed because he did not consider the claimed business method to be within the useful arts.See als
Malla Pollack
"The Multiple Unconstitutionality of Business Method Patents: Common Sense, Congressional Choice, and Constitutional History" 61 Rutgers Computer & Tech. L.J. 28 (2002); Micro Law, "What Kinds of Computer-Software-Related Advances (if Any) Are Eligible for Patents? Part II: The Useful Arts Requirement", IEEE MICRO (Sept.-Oct. 2008) (available at http://docs.law.gwu.edu/facweb/claw/KindsElg-II.pdf and https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=4659278&isnumber=4659262.pdf).

References

The arts Patent law {{Law-term-stub

See also

References