Oldest Patent Lawyer Dies at the Age of 107
A retiree dubbed “the oldest patent attorney in the United States” by National Public Radio has died at the age of 107.
Yardley Chittick, a graduate of George Washington University Law School, practiced law until he was 85, the Boston Globe reports. He had estimated that he worked with about 100 inventors seeking patents.
He died after suffering injuries in a fall. He had remained active in retirement, lifting weights in the gym and playing golf the old-fashioned way. “Anyone who rides in a cart isn’t really golfing,” he told the New Hampshire Business Review in 2005. He didn’t smoke, but he did enjoy a screwdriver every night with dinner, he told the Concord Monitor in 2005.
Despite his legal background, Yardley Chittick told another publication in 2001 that he isn’t all that special, according to the Boston Globe obituary. “I’m an entirely undistinguished person in industry and intellectually,” he told MIT Tech Talk. “All I’ve managed to do is stay alive longer than anybody.”
A hat tip to Legal Blog Watch.
