TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — For two decades, Robert Kearns waged an obsessive crusade against the auto industry, which he accused of stealing his invention. It destroyed his marriage, brought on a mental breakdown and may have cost him millions.
All because of the intermittent windshield wiper.
Not exactly the stuff of Hollywood drama, you say? Veteran film producer Marc Abraham would beg to differ. He found Kearns’ story so captivating that instead of hiring a director to bring it to the screen, he did the job himself.
“There was something about this story that I felt so personally committed to,” said Abraham, who makes his directorial debut with “Flash of Genius,” starring Greg Kinnear as Kearns. The movie, distributed by Universal Pictures, was shown during the recent Traverse City Film Festival and opens in theaters Oct. 17.
Kearns died of cancer in 2005 at age 77, four decades after perfecting the intermittent wiper design in his basement workroom. The onetime engineering instructor at Wayne State University in Detroit received numerous patents for his mechanism.
Kearns took his gadget to Ford Motor Co., which initially showed interest. But he never reached a licensing agreement with Ford or other automakers, partly because he insisted on forming his own company to manufacture the wipers.
Ford began turning out cars with intermittent wipers in 1969, and competitors soon did likewise. Kearns sued Ford in 1978, claiming patent infringement, and took on Chrysler Corp. four years later.
He ultimately filed lawsuits against 26 companies, including General Motors Corp. Most were tossed out of court, although he won judgments against Ford and Chrysler that ultimately brought him more than $30 million.
Most of the money paid attorneys’ fees and other costs of the legal battle, which in the Chrysler case went to the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices refused to overturn the verdict against the company.
Kearns insisted his primary motive wasn’t money, but principle — a point his character makes repeatedly in the film. He turned down settlement offers more lucrative than what he won from juries.
Kearns had a nervous breakdown and was committed to a psychiatric ward in the 1970s after discovering Mercedes-Benz was using an intermittent wiper with an electric circuit similar to his. A few years later, his wife left him, saying his single-mindedness had driven them apart.
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