History of Design and Design Law

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.