Trademarksman

TRADEMARKSMAN
By Scott Alprin, Esq. (Aichi-ken, 1992-95)

(Summer 2008 Issue)

I am a trademark lawyer, and I think it’s all because of my connection to Japan and sports in my post-JET existence.

Not only that, but the one thing I do all year that might be considered “charitable” is intertwined with sports and Japan as well. Because this article would be way too short if I didn’t go on, I shall go on.

During my first year of law school in the spring of 1997, I did my time in the law library, longing for the carefree days of the JET program. When I saw a sign in the lounge in Japanese looking for a paralegal, I called the number in a Tokyo minute. An interview was scheduled.

Soon I was sitting in front of Mr. Kenichi Hattori, renegade Japanese patent attorney, who, at 40, left the Japanese Patent Office in an unprecedented move to America to act as a living link between the Japan and U.S. patent systems. He went to night school and got his U.S. law degree, and became a partner in a mid-size firm a few years later. He wrote a book about his experience, which became a map to future Japanese patent attorneys hoping to make it in the U.S.

I asked him for a job. He said there was no money for that. I thought: “Well then, fine sir, why did you put a sign in the lounge at American University Law School?” But, exhibiting the coolness of a ninja, I revealed no disdain. Rather, I stated with un-ninja-like desperation: “I will work for free.” I got the job, and worked as an unpaid intern that summer.

Mr. Hattori loved tennis, and was quite good. I had played for one year on the varsity team at Colby College. We would go to his club on hot summer nights and hit the heck out of the ball. We never played sets, just hit the ball, back and forth, discussing how to make our games better. Afterwards, we would go to a Japanese izakaya in Northern Virginia and eat and drink heartily in our sweat-soaked t-shirts, telling tall tales, and some short ones too. I learned all about his life. By the end of the summer, we were friends.

He decided to re-hire me as a paid intern, even though the firm was a patent firm, and I had no technical background. Years later, when I finally graduated from law school, Mr. Hattori fired the one trademark attorney at the firm and hired me to be the new one. If it had not been for tennis, I imagine I wouldn’t have gotten past the first summer.

Meanwhile, during JET I was known as the “kanji otaku,” and I had started working on a method to teach kanji to Westerners just after finishing JET. When I became a lawyer, I still had the kanji itch, and through connections at American University, was asked to give a lecture at Maryland University on my breakthrough method (now simply a broken method, gaining dust in my closet).

Mr. Hattori, my old tennis buddy, allowed me to pursue this kanji obsession, as long as I got my work done. The audience at Maryland was filled with Japanese professors, including a woman who ran marathons with a group called Achilles Track Club, a group dedicated to helping disabled runners participate in general running events. I had run my first marathon the year before. After the lecture, she asked if I’d like to join Achilles and help a Japanese runner in the New York Marathon. I was like, “YES!”

That autumn, I was partnered with Kazu, a blind runner who had flown in from Tokyo. Team Kazu consisted of Kazu, myself, and two other runners. We navigated him through the streets of New York, alternating rope duty. I offered helpful advice to him in Japanese, like “POTHOLE, KI WO TSUKETE!”

By about mile 24, I was done. I was, in fact, behind the blind runner. Kazu urged me to fight on. Then, the cramping in both legs began. I persevered, running with the gait of a man on stilts. We crossed the finish line, and all hugged. HELL, it had been, but it was one of the happiest moments of my life.

I’ve run with Kazu in seven straight New York Marathons, and it has never been as painful, or as fulfilling, as the first time. Last year, after the race, I proposed to my girlfriend, and Kazu and his wife met us during our dinner to congratulate us later that night.

So, my sporting adventures in my post-JET life have been linked to Japan, as has my legal career and my status as “guy who helps guide a blind Japanese man in the New York Marathon.” Kazu and his wife attended my wedding this May. So did Mr. Hattori.