In this groundbreaking book, Adrian Bejan takes the recurring patterns in nature—trees, tributaries, air passages, neural networks, and lightning bolts—and reveals how a single principle of physics, the constructal law, accounts for the evolution of these and many other designs in our world. Everything—from biological life to inanimate systems—generates shape and structure and evolves in a sequence of ever-improving designs in order to facilitate flow. River basins, cardiovascular systems, and bolts of lightning are very efficient flow systems to move a current—of water, blood, or electricity. Likewise, the more complex architecture of animals evolve to cover greater distance per unit of useful energy, or increase their flow across the land. Such designs also appear in human organizations, like the hierarchical “flowcharts” or reporting structures in corporations and political bodies. All are governed by the same principle, known as the constructal law, and configure and reconfigure themselves over time to flow more efficiently. Written in an easy style that achieves clarity without sacrificing complexity, Design in Nature is a paradigm-shifting book that will fundamentally transform our understanding of the world around us.

Why do people consult the law? Why do we consult lawyers? Law's Evolution and Human Understanding articulates a fresh conception of law that builds on Oliver Wendell Holmes' celebrated insights concerning law's predictive potential. The book considers important implications of this new understanding for how we individually make moral choices, how we read law, and some of the many other ways that law affects our lives.

This book focuses on product design which is evolving conceptually and practically with advances in technology. Product design is no longer solely about product stylization and decoration, but rather about providing a holistic product experience for the consumer. Therefore, in the foreseeable future, product designs will increasingly communicate not only to our eyes, but to our other senses as well. This book examines the frameworks for the protection of product designs in New Zealand and Australia and evaluates the appropriateness of expanding legal mechanisms for the accommodation of product design evolution. The value of more holistic design protection is balanced against other important considerations such as the “right to repair". The book not only anticipates the extent to which product design will cater to senses other than visual, but also provides a novel framework (with reference to industry examples) for discerning originality in such work for the purposes of copyright. This book also makes suggestions for how designs can be protected from foreseeable infringement (analogous to copyright infringement of music and movies on file sharing networks) resulting from future advances in technologies such as 3D printing and virtual reality.

Are life and the universe a mindless accident--the blind outworking of laws governing cosmic, chemical, and biological evolution? That's the official story many of us were taught somewhere along the way. But what does the science actually say? Drawing on recent discoveries in astronomy, cosmology, chemistry, biology, and paleontology, Evolution and Intelligent Design in a Nutshell shows how the latest scientific evidence suggests a very different story.

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 and specific 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 developments in 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.

This book focuses on product design which is evolving conceptually and practically with advances in technology. Product design is no longer solely about product stylization and decoration, but rather about providing a holistic product experience for the consumer. Therefore, in the foreseeable future, product designs will increasingly communicate not only to our eyes, but to our other senses as well. This book examines the frameworks for the protection of product designs in New Zealand and Australia and evaluates the appropriateness of expanding legal mechanisms for the accommodation of product design evolution. The value of more holistic design protection is balanced against other important considerations such as the "right to repair". The book not only anticipates the extent to which product design will cater to senses other than visual, but also provides a novel framework (with reference to industry examples) for discerning originality in such work for the purposes of copyright. This book also makes suggestions for how designs can be protected from foreseeable infringement (analogous to copyright infringement of music and movies on file sharing networks) resulting from future advances in technologies such as 3D printing and virtual reality. .

The book begins with familiar designs found all around and inside us (such as the ‘trees’ of river basins, human lungs, blood and city traffic). It then shows how all flow systems are driven by power from natural engines everywhere, and how they are endlessly shaped because of freedom. Finally, Professor Bejan explains how people, like everything else that moves on earth, are driven by power derived from our “engines” that consume fuel and food, and that our movement dissipates the power completely and changes constantly for greater access, economies of scale, efficiency, innovation and life. Written for wide audiences of all ages, including readers interested in science, patterns in nature, similarity and non-uniformity, history and the future, and those just interested in having fun with ideas, the book shows how many “design change” concepts acquire a solid scientific footing and how they exist with the evolution of nature, society, technology and science.