30 years ago, on Monday 12^th December 1988, David Keltie Associates opened its doors. At that time David Keltie was the sole proprietor and the only other fee earner was Rosemary Cardas.

On the occasion of our 30^th birthday here is a potted visual history of Keltie.

1988 – David and Rosemary and our first office

David

Rosemary

Buchanan House

As far as we know we were one of the first patent firms to have a logo and colour scheme. The logo was blue with a gold outline and was designed by a firm called “Accident” (“Our logo? Yes, it was designed by Accident” – Badum tish!).

New recruit

In 1989, Sean Cummings joined Keltie. Here’s a picture of Sean and David on the day Sean joined.

Office Moves

Keltie is now in its fifth London based office (Buchanan House was followed by Audrey House, New Fetter Lane, Fleet Place House and now No. 1 London Bridge).

Here’s a morning meeting from New Fetter Lane, circa 1998. We’d need a much bigger table now!

Keltie has also now expanded beyond London to Cirencester, Galway and Cambridge.

BKK767 Detail of the porch of St. John Baptist Church, Cirencester, Gloucestershire, England, UK

Around 1998, Keltie undertook a bit of a rebranding exercise which resulted in the Painting with Words brochure, which we still remember with fondness….

…and the “Tango” themed website which probably caused an uptick in migraine medication sales…

Those of you who are brave enough can still visit the old website at The Wayback Machine – here’s a version from 2005.

More Recruits

David, Rosemary and Sean were soon joined by more of the current partnership – Shakeel Ahmad, Alistair Gay and Judith Caldwell are all shown below.

Shak Ahmed (circa 1998)

Sean Cummings and Alistair Gay

David and Judith Caldwell

Keltie has a retreat once a year where the whole firm gets together to talk about where the firm has come from, where we are and where we’re going. However, on our 20th birthday in 2008 someone had the “great” idea that the whole firm should go camping. Enter Keltiebury which, despite being held in the summer, was somewhat on the cold side. It wouldn’t be right to mention that someone forgot to bring half the sleeping bags and left them back in London, so we won’t say a word about that…

Here are some photos of people looking suitably professional!

Our 25th birthday was held in Loch Lomond and was, in contrast to our 20th, a more sophisticated affair.

Elephant Stamps

The most coveted award at Keltie was in David’s sole gift. It was the Elephant Stamp, which David hand-printed onto the firm’s letterhead like a merit mark at school. He awarded them for a variety of personal achievements, like getting qualified, having a baby or doing an exceptionally good piece of work. A few were even awarded externally, including at least one that adorns a desk at the UK Intellectual Property Office. The Elephant Stamp lives on in the name of Keltie’s in-house café.

Here’s to the next 30 years

We hope you’ve enjoyed looking at some of our old photos as much as we have.

12 December 2018