Mr Walter Ames

Walter led an eventful life and, while he would have liked it to continue for a few more years, recognized that, in accordance with a Swinburne poem, even the longest river flows safely home to the sea.

Walter was born in New York, NY, but his family moved to Atlantic City when his father died when Walter was 10 years old. He graduated from Penn State with a degree in chemistry and worked briefly in that field, where he admits to having an outstandingly poor laboratory technique. Recognizing that he would always be an inferior chemist, he became a newspaper reporter, first on the Atlantic City Press and then the New York World-Telegram and Sun until the demise of that paper. After a brief span as a press agent in New York, he decided to go to law school, first at the University of Miami and then at George Washington University. During law school he drove a taxi and sold women’s shoes in different locales to supply tuition. After law school and a brief stint emulating Perry Mason as a criminal defense attorney, he surrendered to the inevitable: he would be an intellectual property attorney. He worked for a patent firm in New York, then for five years with the Law Dept. of General Foods Corp., in White Plaines, NY. Finally he returned to what was then the D.C. firm of Watson, Cole, Grindle & Watson, where he remained for some 33 years as the lead litigation counsel, trying IP cases throughout the country.

Walter never achieved one of his legal goals: to become a member of the Bar of all 13 U.S. Courts of Appeals. Although he had several cases in their jurisdictions, no appeals were ever taken and so he never achieved membership in the Bars of the Sixth and Eighth Circuits.

He is survived by his wife of more than 60 years, Marion Lemle Ames, of McLean, VA and two sons, Mitchell Ames of Sterling, VA and Douglas Ames, of Huntington Beach, CA, as well as his grandchildren, great grandchildren and nieces. As Walter would have liked to close this chapter, in the words of Poe, In paced requiescat, he rests in peace.

A graveside service will be held on Tuesday, May 1 at 11 am at King David Memorial Gardens, 7482 Lee Highway, Falls Church, VA 22042.