| (1) |
Visiting foreign offices
It has always been a policy of Yamaguchi & Associates to send its staff to Europe, America and other countries around the world. This policy was started when Mr. Yamaguchi had an unexpected culture shock during a stay in Washington, D.C. while he was in his thirties.
When Mr. Yamaguchi was in the United States he realized many cultural differences between Americans and Japanese. For example, when the Japanese prime minister visits the United States the Japanese newspapers abound with articles about the visit and the television media thoroughly covers the event. He expected the same media coverage of such events in Washington, D.C., However, in a city where national leaders from more than a hundred countries around the world visit every day, such an event is quite mundane. A visit from a foreign minister is not headline news. Furthermore, other issues that at the time were considered understood and accepted by Americans were actually not even recognized at all by the American people. He was shocked to see the extreme differences in people, culture and world understanding.
Because of this early recognition of the need for greater global understanding, Mr. Yamaguchi now insists that his staff experience first hand other cultures and people. He firmly believes that his staff should experience such a culture shock in order to understand different cultures and to foster understanding and a greater appreciation of people around the world. Mr. Yamaguchi believes that having this experience will help his staff to develop themselves as people who can professionally and responsibly serve their clients as Japanese representatives in the global society.
As part of this policy, Yamaguchi & Associates encourages its staff to visit local agents in foreign countries whenever appropriate For example, we tend to visit when filing a series of applications, after receiving rejections for common or similar grounds, when filing important applications
In such cases, the staff visits the foreign agents and patent offices, whether it is in the U.S., Europe or other country, often accompanied by inventors or persons from the IP department of client companies, to negotiate with examiners directly by showing them necessary data, samples and arguments.
|
In addition to the above, Yamaguchi & Associates is now and has been actively engaged in other international activities for many years. 
