Rule Utilitarianism: The Controversy behind Software Patents

We live in a world where most humans act like sheep following the herd; most people would rather follow the crowd rather than think for themselves. From cheating on an exam to copying other people’s ideas, that seems to be the norm in our society: most people want the easy way out for everything, as thinking is actually hard to do. So for the very few people who do put effort into thinking and use their creativity to develop novel ideas and implement them through the commercialization of a product or service, they have to be rewarded so that all their effort, time, and money aren’t spent in vain.

From a rule utilitarian point of view, from a macroeconomic perspective, granting software patents by giving the exclusive right to sell, use, and make for a certain number of years might persuade people to explore new ideas, thus increasing and promoting innovation.

When the U.S. had just become independent from Britain, it wanted to heavily influence and increase the growth of the economy, so it led to the introduction of intellectual property. After all, that is what the forefathers of the country had intended when they wrote the Constitution. In Article One, Section 8, it says, “The Congress shall have power 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.” During that time, the nation heavily relied on its agricultural sector and was in dire need to cultivate and enhance its manufacturing industry to catch up with the rest of the industrializing world. Patents led to an increase in innovation exponentially and in the long run the U.S. has become the mecca of innovation in the fields of science, manufacturing, and technology.

In this case, the principle of “acting to bring about the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of people” does apply because the granting of patents, as in the case of Photoshop, encouraged