So, Mark…Would you take the $30 Million and have no claim to the Intermittent windshield wiper system?

Excuse me, intermittent who?! Cha-Ching

http://www.google.com/patents?id=8tN0AAAAEBAJ&dq=R.W.+Kearns

I’ll wait for the movie and then decide whether to take the money or not. :)

I can’t wait to see this movie! My dad just sent me the trailer. It really hits home with my family because my Dad’s patent is related to the intermittent wipers. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to get it off the ground.

I saw the preview in the theater when I went to see Mama Mia this summer. Can’t wait!!!

“I’ll wait for the movie and then decide whether to take the money or not.”

Just curious, why would you need to see the details of the movie, to know if you’d take the $30 million dollar offer or not?

Because he may have ended up with $100 million. :)

True! But in the preview, he stood to lose everything!? So, based on just that bit of info…What say you?

$30 mill? Hell ya!

me too :)

What ever you do, don’t do any google searches on this one! Wait for the movie, one of my close friends father worked for Chrysler at the time and his ‘perspective’ is very interesting.

Yeah buddy! Wouldn’t take much to turn that $30 Million into $100 Mil!

Compound Interest
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_interest

Albert Einstein called compound interest “The greatest mathematical discovery of all time”.

$30 Million dollars gaining 12% annually for 10 years using the principals of compound interest…Approximately $93,175,446.25

We reviewed the book in the November issue of Inventors Digest. Great writing, but I wish author John Seabrook would have focused more on inventor Robert Kearns and his battle against the major automakers. Seabrook told me Kearns was easier to admire than he was to like, and cited Kearns’s stubbornness in declining the initial $30 million settlement. It’s easy to arm-chair quarterback this one, but I would have swallowed some pride and taken the $30 million. That buys a lot of beer to wash the bad taste out of your mouth.
I’m going to start another thread on another book and development you all may find riveting. Check this forum for “A License to Steal.”
Mike Drummond, editor
Inventors Digest

Hey Eddie, to bad we couldn’t get 12% today.
What a difference a couple of decades make.

I never bought a DVD of a commercial movie. Flash of Genius will be the exception. Unfortunately, as a former professor and idealist, and contributor to an invention, I have too much in common with the protagonist to be objective. Kearns rocks.

Check out this case. Richardson v Suzuki 9 U.S.P.Q.2d 1913; 868 F.2d 1226 (CAFC 1989).

http://altlaw.org/v1/cases/410925

Not as dramatic as the Kearns case, but interesting reading. This case would probably have been good for a movie as well.

Also not as dramatic as Kearns but still very litigious and expensive and drawn out: this was my cousin’s invention and Bell Helicopter tried stealing it. One little person, who owned a helicopter business and who was always coming up with improvements, fought with everything he had against theft – and ‘won’ the only way he could. Here is the link if you are interested:

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/1998/02/18...

Just watched the film and got disavow . When he won i found myself also clapping . I respected that he just wanted the recognition that he had solved this problem and go down in history. Money is nice but this was his baby . Roll on the day when a blatant rip off is a crime that carries a jail sentence to the top man in the company involved .