Title: Designing Your Own Unique and Dazzling Life: A Journey Through Intellectual Property Rights
Author: Ho Hun Hyam
Publisher: AuthorHouseUK
ISBN: 9781546281894
Pages: 172
Genre: Body, Mind, Spirit / Supernatural
Reviewed by: Barbara Bamberger Scott
Pacific Book Review
An experienced patent attorney writes a memoir based on personal and professional triumphs in Designing Your Own Unique and Dazzling Life. Ho Hyun Nahm is a Korean, raised in circumstances of poverty. His father died when the boy was very young, his family lived in a poor and remote region of the country with little access to the “back-up” (a Korean term denoting supportive persons and systems) so necessary to succeed.
He was converted to Christianity when just out of elementary school, an experience he describes as “similar to electricity.” By various means and great cheerfulness and determination, he became a patent attorney, able to work all over the world. In Korea, all products introduced from abroad must be approved with a new patent; the laws concerned with intellectual property have sent much fascinating work Nahm’s way. He has attained many honors and distinctions in the course of his 30-year career.
Nahm has written other books concerning his groundbreaking legal cases and he recounts some of those cases here, while combining these professional accomplishments with recollections of a more personal nature. In school, he thought one of his teachers had a special interest in him, only to find out it was because he was the only boy in class who wore glasses. Early in his career as an attorney, at an evening break during an international conference, he had the sudden urge to dance, even though he didn’t know how, and soon got his colleagues dancing with him, giving him unforgettable enjoyment.
Many of his stories are like parables with an accompanying moral conclusion: a memory of being treated well by a foreign corporation leads him to urge corporate leaders to consider how small but special attentions to vendor companies can create loyalty and greater productivity. A short trip with a female pilot to the Grand Canyon makes him mindful of his home country’s overly conservative views of the roles of women.
Nahm often refers to himself as part of the “creative minority,” referencing the statement of Joseph Ratzinger that “Believing Christians should look upon themselves as such a creative minority … at the service of humankind at large.” Nahm has written this book as a legacy for his children and grandchildren, whom he encourages to quietly break barriers to success in their own lives, as he has done, in service to the greater good. He concludes by calculating that since he works 72 hours in every 24, he is now 120 years old – and going strong. Hard work is a blessing that he wishes upon future generations.
