Those who support the concept of the need for utility model or other "second tier" protection advance three philosophical arguments in support of their position.

The first is that the small innovator, who is typically in small scale business, is just as deserving of a degree of protection to get his or her small scale innovation off the ground as are bigger concerns in respect of larger inventions. It is pointed out that in all industrialized countries more persons are employed by small and medium size enterprises than they are by large ones so that encouraging this sector of the economy should be useful in job creation.

The second argument is that determining a particular standard of nonobviousness necessary for protection, the law requires the kind of value judgement that it is inappropriate for the courts to make and that it would be better to rely on the marketplace to determine what should be protected. This argument is similar to the approach of an English judge who dealing with a copyright matter reached the conclusion that "what is worth copying is worth protecting". [5]

The third argument questions the ability of the judicial procedure to decide issues of obviousness. For example, its proponents question why it is that a devisor of a new product should be denied protection for what he or she devised if two judges conclude the matter is obvious and two conclude that it is unobvious but the two who decide that it is obvious happen to be in an appellate court rather than a court of first instance.