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The windshield-wiper story has always bothered me. I'm sorry, call me a Communist or something, but nobody deserves $30 million for "inventing" an intermittent

The windshield-wiper story has always bothered me. I'm sorry, call me a Communist or something, but nobody deserves $30 million for "inventing" an intermittent windshield wiper. Can you imagine what it would do to our cost of living, not to mention the progress of technology, if we had to reward "inventors" across all market segments by that standard? To me, the Kearns case was just an early example of an obvious patent that would never have been granted by any examiner smart enough to fog a mirror.

tokenadult 17y ago
A contrary point of view would be that if the incremental improvement in performance of a variable-speed wiper is worth one cent (or one dollar, or whatever) over the performance of a constant-speed wiper for each driver on the roadways of this country, it makes perfect economic sense for the pioneer who brings about that improvement to enjoy a license fee that car manufacturers pass on to each driver for the duration of a patent. Patents don't last forever, but they are intended to be lucrative enough to get someone out of the starting blocks to DO something about implementing a new improvement.
- CamperBob 17y ago
  Here's one way to counter that argument: let's say you run a car manufacturer. You don't happen to know about the Kearns patent, but one day while driving home in an intermittent rainstorm, you find yourself wishing your wipers didn't have to run continuously. When you get to work the next day you stop by the engineering department and say "Hey, Joe, stick a 555 timer in that windshield relay circuit, would you?" Five years and several million cars later, Kearns jumps out of the bushes and whacks you in the kneecap with a lawsuit. What should your penalty be? Do you agree with the judge that you owe some guy $10,000,000 for a trivial idea that he happened to have before you did?
  - padmanabhan01 17y ago
    We shouldn't ignore the effect of hindsight. Lot of ideas that we think today as obvious or straight forward, may not have been all that obvious before it got popular. In that movie, Ford and Chrysler engineers apparently had trouble duplicating his model. That said, Its not about how simple or how hard an idea is right? Its about how much value it adds. EDIT: In your example, as long as it is not willful infringement and as long as he started making them before he patented it, there will not be any penalty. But in case of ford and Chrysler, its willful infringement.
    - CamperBob 17y ago
      There's still a penalty for non-willful infringement; if nothing else, the inventor can request an injunction that shuts down your whole production line. That's the scary thing about patents... unless you have comprehensive knowledge of every patent in your field of endeavor, they are financial time bombs. If the plaintiff can show that you did know about the patent and infringe it willfully, the damages are tripled.
  - tokenadult 17y ago
    Well, that is why patent law keeps lots of lawyers busy. There is a principle of "nonobviousness" in patent law that requires enough engineering or science knowledge that most patent lawyers are persons with undergraduate degrees in engineering or science.
    - lallysingh 17y ago
      The problem is, "nonobviousness" only applies to real practitioners. The patent office is a stepping stone out of school into real industry for many.
  - pj 17y ago
    See right here is the problem: in hindsight, you think the solution was easy. [Kearns] first patent for the [intermittent wipers] was filed on December 1, 1964. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kearns http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kearns The 555 timer, however, was designed and invented by Hans R. Camenzind ... in 1970 and introduced in 1971 by Signetics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/555_timer_IC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/555_timer_IC The 555 didn't exist when he invented his wipers. What is your solution now?
    - CamperBob 17y ago
      Sigh. OK, let's work on the 'abstraction' thing a bit. Given almost any mechanical or electrical technology, there exists means of using that technology to control the duty cycles of machines. The 555 was just an example of what you might use to implement an intermittent wiper. As I understand it, accessories like windshield wipers originally operated from manifold vacuum, so the patent probably describes some sort of vacuum-based contraption which would be as obvious to MEs as a timer circuit is to EEs. Another point being, even if it were a novel concept when implemented with vacuum lines and valves, it certainly wouldn't be novel or unexpected when cheap solid-state electronics did arrive on the scene. But chances were good that the patent claims were broad enough to hold sway over future implementations. (Disclaimer: I haven't read it.) So fast-forward your 8-track to the early 70s: windshield wipers are now run from the car's electrical system, and wow, hey, cool, here's the 555... and meanwhile the goofy patent's still in force.
    - silentOpen 17y ago
      Without having read any docs or patents, I'd say some sort of bimetallic strip: two metals, different resistances/heat expansion constants. It's how they used to make turn signal timers.
anamax 17y ago
> Can you imagine what it would do to our cost of living, not to mention the progress of technology, if we had to reward "inventors" across all market segments by that standard? Our cost of living would go down and progress would go up if more folks invented stuff because there was money in it. Why is that a bad thing?
- frig 17y ago
  For there to be money in 'inventing stuff' -- at least in the form of an incentive -- potential inventors have to believe there's enough possibility of there being money in 'inventing stuff' that 'inventing stuff' is worthwhile. It's entirely possible to imagine a patent system that would work against the goals of lowering the cost of living and making progress 'go up'; such a system would be one in which: - patent infringement carries heavy penalties when successfully prosecuted - individual patent licenses must be negotiated individually; there's nothing resembling a compulsory licensing scheme - researching the existing body of patents is difficult, expensive, and often inconclusive (bonus points: in addition to upfront cost of researching, actually having done the research potentially opens you to steeper penalties than would be the case had you not done the research) - so many patents have been granted that in many fields it is hard to produce a product without using patented technology in some way (either by infringement or by licensing) - maintaining ownership of a patent carries minimal ongoing expense, carries no obligation to put the patent to use (in licensing or in direct production) - there's essentially no economically significant 'time-out' or statute of limitations on filing charges for past infringement I leave as exercise to the reader deriving optimal strategies under such a system for inventors, patent-holding firms, and manufacturers. Whether the system we have resembles the system sketched above depends greatly upon who you ask, what field with which they happen to have the most experience, their previous professional background, and from whence their current livelihood derives.
Tangurena 17y ago
Can you imagine how much cheaper the car manufacturers would have gotten off if they hadn't ripped Kearns off, and taken decades in court to fight the guy? The car companies played scorched-earth tactics with the guy, and I'm glad they lost.

tokenadult 17y ago

A contrary point of view would be that if the incremental improvement in performance of a variable-speed wiper is worth one cent (or one dollar, or whatever) over the performance of a constant-speed wiper for each driver on the roadways of this country, it makes perfect economic sense for the pioneer who brings about that improvement to enjoy a license fee that car manufacturers pass on to each driver for the duration of a patent. Patents don't last forever, but they are intended to be lucrative enough to get someone out of the starting blocks to DO something about implementing a new improvement.

CamperBob 17y ago
Here's one way to counter that argument: let's say you run a car manufacturer. You don't happen to know about the Kearns patent, but one day while driving home in an intermittent rainstorm, you find yourself wishing your wipers didn't have to run continuously. When you get to work the next day you stop by the engineering department and say "Hey, Joe, stick a 555 timer in that windshield relay circuit, would you?" Five years and several million cars later, Kearns jumps out of the bushes and whacks you in the kneecap with a lawsuit. What should your penalty be? Do you agree with the judge that you owe some guy $10,000,000 for a trivial idea that he happened to have before you did?
- padmanabhan01 17y ago
  We shouldn't ignore the effect of hindsight. Lot of ideas that we think today as obvious or straight forward, may not have been all that obvious before it got popular. In that movie, Ford and Chrysler engineers apparently had trouble duplicating his model. That said, Its not about how simple or how hard an idea is right? Its about how much value it adds. EDIT: In your example, as long as it is not willful infringement and as long as he started making them before he patented it, there will not be any penalty. But in case of ford and Chrysler, its willful infringement.
  - CamperBob 17y ago
    There's still a penalty for non-willful infringement; if nothing else, the inventor can request an injunction that shuts down your whole production line. That's the scary thing about patents... unless you have comprehensive knowledge of every patent in your field of endeavor, they are financial time bombs. If the plaintiff can show that you did know about the patent and infringe it willfully, the damages are tripled.
- tokenadult 17y ago
  Well, that is why patent law keeps lots of lawyers busy. There is a principle of "nonobviousness" in patent law that requires enough engineering or science knowledge that most patent lawyers are persons with undergraduate degrees in engineering or science.
  - lallysingh 17y ago
    The problem is, "nonobviousness" only applies to real practitioners. The patent office is a stepping stone out of school into real industry for many.
- pj 17y ago
  See right here is the problem: in hindsight, you think the solution was easy. [Kearns] first patent for the [intermittent wipers] was filed on December 1, 1964. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kearns http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kearns The 555 timer, however, was designed and invented by Hans R. Camenzind ... in 1970 and introduced in 1971 by Signetics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/555_timer_IC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/555_timer_IC The 555 didn't exist when he invented his wipers. What is your solution now?
  - CamperBob 17y ago
    Sigh. OK, let's work on the 'abstraction' thing a bit. Given almost any mechanical or electrical technology, there exists means of using that technology to control the duty cycles of machines. The 555 was just an example of what you might use to implement an intermittent wiper. As I understand it, accessories like windshield wipers originally operated from manifold vacuum, so the patent probably describes some sort of vacuum-based contraption which would be as obvious to MEs as a timer circuit is to EEs. Another point being, even if it were a novel concept when implemented with vacuum lines and valves, it certainly wouldn't be novel or unexpected when cheap solid-state electronics did arrive on the scene. But chances were good that the patent claims were broad enough to hold sway over future implementations. (Disclaimer: I haven't read it.) So fast-forward your 8-track to the early 70s: windshield wipers are now run from the car's electrical system, and wow, hey, cool, here's the 555... and meanwhile the goofy patent's still in force.
  - silentOpen 17y ago
    Without having read any docs or patents, I'd say some sort of bimetallic strip: two metals, different resistances/heat expansion constants. It's how they used to make turn signal timers.

anamax 17y ago

> Can you imagine what it would do to our cost of living, not to mention the progress of technology, if we had to reward "inventors" across all market segments by that standard? Our cost of living would go down and progress would go up if more folks invented stuff because there was money in it. Why is that a bad thing?

frig 17y ago
For there to be money in 'inventing stuff' -- at least in the form of an incentive -- potential inventors have to believe there's enough possibility of there being money in 'inventing stuff' that 'inventing stuff' is worthwhile. It's entirely possible to imagine a patent system that would work against the goals of lowering the cost of living and making progress 'go up'; such a system would be one in which: - patent infringement carries heavy penalties when successfully prosecuted - individual patent licenses must be negotiated individually; there's nothing resembling a compulsory licensing scheme - researching the existing body of patents is difficult, expensive, and often inconclusive (bonus points: in addition to upfront cost of researching, actually having done the research potentially opens you to steeper penalties than would be the case had you not done the research) - so many patents have been granted that in many fields it is hard to produce a product without using patented technology in some way (either by infringement or by licensing) - maintaining ownership of a patent carries minimal ongoing expense, carries no obligation to put the patent to use (in licensing or in direct production) - there's essentially no economically significant 'time-out' or statute of limitations on filing charges for past infringement I leave as exercise to the reader deriving optimal strategies under such a system for inventors, patent-holding firms, and manufacturers. Whether the system we have resembles the system sketched above depends greatly upon who you ask, what field with which they happen to have the most experience, their previous professional background, and from whence their current livelihood derives.

Tangurena 17y ago

Can you imagine how much cheaper the car manufacturers would have gotten off if they hadn't ripped Kearns off, and taken decades in court to fight the guy? The car companies played scorched-earth tactics with the guy, and I'm glad they lost.