Does anyone care to point out any times the patent system has helped to foster innovation or protected the little guy in the last 10 years?
I remember reading about a guy named Robert Kearns back in the mid 90's and his struggle with patent law. Kearns is credited with designing (and patenting) variable speed controls for auto windsheild wipers but he was overlooked by the auto manufacturers since the 50s (And from what I hear also being one hell of a suave guy...he shot out his own eye with a champagne cork on his wedding night). I could go on explaining my fuzzy memory of the whole story, but instead I pulled this off engineerguy.com:
"Now, wiper blades interested auto makers because wipers helped sell cars. In the late 1950s several cars began sporting two blades that swept in parallel across the windshield, replacing the single blade that created a huge Vee in the middle of the windshield. This new two blade system attracted buyers, and by the 60s every car had them. The next step was intermittent operation. The key is making a cheap timer for the wipers. And here is where Kearns' work comes in. The auto companies had developed a mechanical contraption with some twenty-nine moving parts. Kearns design by contrast was elegant: He used an electric motor with a timer to control the wiper. The result: Four parts, only one of which even moved. But it seemed so obvious that auto makers thought Kearns ' patents would be null and void.
So they built cars with these wipers, but didn't pay Kearns. When he heard about this he bought a wiper and carefully took it apart: He saw all the essential parts of his 1964 patent. So he sued nearly every major auto maker. He sued for one point six billion dollars - this was about 500 million for his lost profits and more than a billion in damages. The first auto maker he sued offered him thirty million dollars to settle out of court. But to Kearns accepting the settlement meant that it was OK to steal inventions. His case when to trial after a twelve year delay - twelve years in which Kearns' single minded pursuit of justice lost him his wife and broke his health. After a three week trial the jury returned a verdict: The auto maker indeed infringed on Kearns patents, but they awarded him $5 million dollars - a far cry from the 1.6 billion he wanted.
So, the next time your wipers flash across your windshield pause for a moment and think of Bob Kearns and his struggle for justice."
I understand, however, that he had eventually recieved much more than 5 mil. through other settlements with ford and chryser...
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Does anyone care to point out any times the patent system has helped to foster innovation or protected the little guy in the last 10 years?
I remember reading about a guy named Robert Kearns back in the mid 90's and his struggle with patent law. Kearns is credited with designing (and patenting) variable speed controls for auto windsheild wipers but he was overlooked by the auto manufacturers since the 50s (And from what I hear also being one hell of a suave guy...he shot out his own eye with a champagne cork on his wedding night). I could go on explaining my fuzzy memory of the whole story, but instead I pulled this off engineerguy.com:
"Now, wiper blades interested auto makers because wipers helped sell cars. In the late 1950s several cars began sporting two blades that swept in parallel across the windshield, replacing the single blade that created a huge Vee in the middle of the windshield. This new two blade system attracted buyers, and by the 60s every car had them. The next step was intermittent operation. The key is making a cheap timer for the wipers. And here is where Kearns' work comes in. The auto companies had developed a mechanical contraption with some twenty-nine moving parts. Kearns design by contrast was elegant: He used an electric motor with a timer to control the wiper. The result: Four parts, only one of which even moved. But it seemed so obvious that auto makers thought Kearns ' patents would be null and void.
So they built cars with these wipers, but didn't pay Kearns. When he heard about this he bought a wiper and carefully took it apart: He saw all the essential parts of his 1964 patent. So he sued nearly every major auto maker. He sued for one point six billion dollars - this was about 500 million for his lost profits and more than a billion in damages. The first auto maker he sued offered him thirty million dollars to settle out of court. But to Kearns accepting the settlement meant that it was OK to steal inventions. His case when to trial after a twelve year delay - twelve years in which Kearns' single minded pursuit of justice lost him his wife and broke his health. After a three week trial the jury returned a verdict: The auto maker indeed infringed on Kearns patents, but they awarded him $5 million dollars - a far cry from the 1.6 billion he wanted.
So, the next time your wipers flash across your windshield pause for a moment and think of Bob Kearns and his struggle for justice."
I understand, however, that he had eventually recieved much more than 5 mil. through other settlements with ford and chryser...