This Is Our “17 Seconds” Newsletter #141: 17 Seconds = Useful Info Quickly.
In 2008, Clocktower was hired by a startup founder to patent a cool product, which we did. About a decade after the patent was filed, we learned that the startup founder had died of cancer. The Clocktower family has lost quite a few folks to cancer over the years, which is one of the reasons that we actively support health-related nonprofits with pro bono trademark work.
In 2025, we got a note from of former client’s son (let’s call him Aaron), who was in his second year of law school. Aaron was going through his late father’s belongings and found an old mousepad that Clocktower had sent to his dad in 2008. So Aaron sent us an email, which read, in part:
I wonder if you still have any Clocktower-branded mousepads, and if so, whether there’s any chance you’d be willing to ship one to me. It would mean a lot to me to keep that bit of connection to my father, and it’s no coincidence that I have found myself in the legal field now – my father always spoke about his admiration for the lawyers he worked with, and that stuck with me.
We had a great email conversation with Aaron and sent him a couple more mousepads.
And now I am only two months removed from the death of my own father, so I get the connection that something as simple as a mousepad can provide.
Good skill in law school, Aaron. If you are anything like your dad, then you won’t need luck!
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