History of Design and Design Law: An International and Interdisciplinary Perspective

For the first time, this book provides an up-to-date history of product design and product design law covering 17 countries — Japan, Korea, China, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden), Russia, the United States, Brazil and Australia — selected for their innovative or influential approach to design or design protection.

Each country is the subject of two chapters — one on the history of design and the other on the history of design law — authored by experts in design and intellectual property (IP) law. This unique interdisciplinary approach explains why and how various national design protection systems (that can include design, copyright, trade mark, competition and civil laws) developed, making it an ideal book for students, researchers and lawyers. 

The book also serves as an international survey of different national policy and legal responses to historical developments andspecific design and legal issues allowing readers to consider their advantages and disadvantages — and so is also recommended for policy and law makers, as well as organizations that administer IP rights. 

Topics include the subject matter of design protection; procedural and substantive requirements; design registration; infringement; and the overlap of design rights and other IP rights. The chapters on design history provide further context to the historical development of these legal concepts by considering major design movements, key designers and iconic designs and the current state of design. 

The chapters highlight the connected and often complementary relationship between the two histories, not only for each country, but at the regional and international level, often as a result of government policies, trade, colonialism, immigration and globalisation. 

Design and design practice continue to become more global and evolve with developmentsin technology. At the same time, design laws are not internationally harmonized and continue to develop at the national level, with a number of significant changes occurring in recent years. 

This timely book shows how the lessons of the past continue to inform the future direction of design and the legal systems developed to protect it.

Tsukasa Aso is an associate professor of law (with tenure) at Kyushu University School of Design in Fukuoka, where he teaches intellectual property (IP) and design law courses at the graduate and undergraduate level. His research focuses on patent law, design law and copyright law as well as the intersection of civil and IP law. His recent publications include the interdisciplinary volumes Japanese Design Law and Practice (Wolters Kluwer, 2021) (in English) and The Legal System of Design Protection: Current Situation and Issues from the Perspective of Jurists and Designers (Nippon Hyoron Sha, 2016) (in Japanese) with Professor Christoph Rademacher; and The System of Design Protection in Different Countries (published as a Special Issue in 2017 (Vol. 25-2) of the Journal of the Science of Design by the Japanese Society for the Science of Design) (in Japanese). Professor Aso also writes about Japanese IP Law in French ― for example, ‘Droits de propriété industrielle et intellectuelle au Japon’ in Pascale Bloch et al. (eds) Droit japonais des affaires (Larcier, 2019) pp. 121-171. He obtained his bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees in law from Keio University in Tokyo and has recently been a visiting scholar at the Center for International Intellectual Property Studies (CEIPI), University of Strasbourg and Visiting Professor, Le Centre d’Etudes et de Coopération Juridique Interdisciplinaire (CECOJI), University of Poitiers.

Christoph Rademacher is a professor at Waseda University School of Law in Tokyo. He teaches graduate and undergraduate level courses in the field of business law and IP law, in both Japanese and English. Professor Rademacher’s research focuses on the protection of technical innovation by means of patents and other rights. He is a regular speaker at IP law conferences in Asia, Europe and the US and has hosted over twenty international law conferences at Waseda. His publications include the treatise Patent Enforcement in the US, Germany and Japan (Oxford University Press, 2015) as a co-author, and the interdisciplinary volumes Japanese Design Law and Practice (Wolters Kluwer, 2021) as a co-editor with Professor Aso. He was the recipient of the 2019 Waseda University Research Award for High-Impact Publications. Professor Rademacher is admitted as an attorney-at-law in New York and as a solicitor in the Republic of Ireland. He obtained his first degree in business and law and his doctorate degree in law from the University of Siegen, Germany, and an LLM from Stanford Law School.

Jonathan Dobinson is an Australian lawyer living in Japan and an Adjunct Researcher at the Research Center for the Legal System of Intellectual Property, Waseda University in Tokyo. He has over 20 years’ experience providing legal policy, communications and international relations advice to organisations in Australia and Asia, including as a senior lawyer, director of research, and director of communications forAustralian Government agencies; and as a consultant to Republic of Korea Government agencies on EU recognition of South Korea’s data protection laws. He has led secretariats for international forums, delivered capacity building programs for legal institutions in Africa and the South Pacific, and developed international internship programs. Jonathan’s research focuses on IP, data protection, law reform and comparative law. His recent publications include ‘Rethinking the functionality exclusion in EU Community Design law’ (2019) 41 EIPR 639 and he provided assistance on Rademacher and Aso, Japanese Design Law and Practice (Wolters Kluwer, 2021). Jonathan obtained bachelor of arts and bachelor of law degrees from the University of Wollongong, Australia and is admitted as a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of NSW. He obtained a master’s degree in IP from Hongik University, South Korea.