Robert Kearns

Robert William Kearns ( born March 10, 1927 in Gary, Indiana; † 9 February 2005 in Baltimore, Maryland ) was an American engineer. He became famous for the invention of the Interval wiper, for which he deposited the first U.S. patent application on 1 December 1964.

Life

Kearns grew up in River Rouge, Michigan, near the Ford plant. During World War II he worked for the Office of Strategic Services, a forerunner of the CIA.

After he received his doctorate in civil engineering from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. There was a 11 -year teaching position at Wayne State University.

Until 1971 he worked in Detroit as commissioner of buildings and safety engineering and then moved to Gaithersburg. There he worked as a principal investigator for the highways at the National Bureau of Standards.

During the long years of court cases his wife divorced him in 1989, left. A court sentenced him in July 1990 to 120 days in jail because he did not comply with the payment of child support in the amount of 700 U.S. $, and he also did not give up his house in Gaithersburg. After 35 days in detention, he bowed to the court and agreed to an additional is to leave his wife of 10% of the possible compensation payments.

Invention of the intermittent windshield wiper and patent litigation

The idea for an interval wipers came Kearns during his wedding night in 1953, when a champagne cork his left eye almost completely destroyed. The movements of the eyelid brought him to the idea that wipers could just work at intervals.

In 1962 he applied for a patent for his invention. Shortly thereafter, he presented them to the Ford Motor Company, without waiting for the grant of the patent. His first patent for intermittent wiper, U.S. 3,351,836, issued on 7 November 1967. These were followed by about 30 more.

In 1967, he imputed firmly to a purchased by his son circuit for Mercedes -Benz that it was almost identical to his invention. 1969 Ford built the first intermittent wiper in his models a; more car manufacturers followed shortly. Kearns then suffered a nervous breakdown and was treated at Montgomery General Hospital.

Kearns sued Ford to a compensation payment of 141 million U.S. $ and filed a lawsuit against 26 other car manufacturer in the world. After a 12-year process it Ford offered to close the case, but what Kearns refused. His former attorney William Durkee guess that Kearns could receive up to 50 million U.S. $ from Ford and other automakers.

In 1990, Kearns the lawsuit against Ford and Chrysler: Ford was sentenced to a fine of 10.2 million U.S. dollars in damages because of unintentional patent infringement, and later Chrysler for unfair patent infringement and to a payment of more than 20 million U.S. $.

Some other processes, including against German and Japanese car manufacturers were dropped after Kearns had committed procedural defect. As he has already announced its fifth office, he failed, for example, periods and deadlines.

Filming

The U.S. feature film Flash of Genius from 2008 tells the story of Robert Kearns. He is played by Greg Kinnear in it.