Oldest Active Federal Judge Dies

Judge Giles S. Rich (Fed. Cir.)

Judge Giles Sutherland Rich (Fed. Cir.) said there are three reasons why he has never taken senior status with its reduced caseload and relaxed lifestyle that some choose after meeting the statutory age and service requirements. “First, I like my work,” said Rich. “Second, I think I’m doing something useful and that gives me a great deal of satisfaction. Third, I can’t imagine what I would do if I retired.” With a full caseload and no plans for senior status in sight, Rich is on the road to being the oldest active federal judge ever. “I think retirement shortens your life,” Rich said. “I have seen it happen all too often. The way I keep up with what’s going on in the world is through a constant stream of young law clerks. We have lunch together nearly every day, and they keep me up to date,” said Rich.

Born May 30, 1904, in Rochester, New York, Rich began his legal career in his father’s New York City patent and trademark law firm in 1929. He rapidly developed an expertise in the field and today is widely regard as “the dean of modern patent law. Active in the New York Patent Law Association and a recognized lecturer on patent law, Rich was nominated to the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals (CCPA) in 1955 by President Eisenhower.

Rich said he recalls reporting to work on the CCPA and asking the chief judge how much staff he could hire. “I was told I could have either a secretary or a law clerk,” said Rich. ”The old CCPA was a sleepy place that heard less than a hundred cases a year—all en banc. I used to have time to play around in my dark room at home and vacation in the weekend place I built in Newtown, Connecticut.” Now, Rich said, the CCPA’s successor court, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) sits throughout the year without a recess. When Rich and his wife manage to get away to their Connecticut home, the fax machine there runs constantly. “If you don’t keep up, the work piles up, so I use the fax machine as a link with the court when I am out of town.”

With the merger of the CCPA and the U.S. Court of Claims on October 1, 1982, Rich became a judge on the newly created CAFC. Rich admits to some degree of uncertainty when he first learned that his docket would expand beyond intellectual property and customs cases. “At first I told people that I was not delighted but diluted,” Rich recalls. “But as time went on I also became delighted and have found the experience to be intellectually broadening.” Rich added that the “court has been a huge success in terms of clarifying patent law.” In addition to hearing appeals from the Patent and Trademark Office, the CAFC’s docket also includes cases from all of the U.S. district courts in patent suits, from the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, the U.S. Court of Veterans Appeals, the International Trade Commission, the Merit Systems Protection Board, and the Board of Contract Appeals.

After 27 years in private practice, 14 years of part-time teaching, and nearly 39 years on the bench [as of 1994], Rich has no difficulty singling out a career highlight. More than four decades ago, Rich was on the two-man drafting committee of the bar group that drafted the Patent Act of 1952, which revolutionized the standard for issuing patents. Perhaps most noteworthy to Rich were the succeeding 14 years that he spent speaking, writing, and trying to convince others of the impact of the act, which replaced the undefinable, judge-made requirement of “invention” with the more concise statutory concept of defined “nonobviousness” (35 U.S.C. § 103). Rich said, “Judges were not applying the new act, and I was concerned that it would be adjudicated out of existence as the same old law merely ‘codified.’ One of the greatest things I think I did was to make certain, from my strategic position on the CCPA, that this did not happen.”

As Rich approaches his ninetieth [in 1994] birthday, the excitement and focus remain. “As long as I find the work challenging and interesting and feel that I can continue making a contribution, I plan on being here,” said Rich. “It sure beats living in a retirement home.”