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by watergatorman 2699 days ago
I am not taking sides, because today's Ford Co is not saddled with Henry Ford's controversies, and both MIT and Ford are large organizations. I don't know who is right, a jury might decide.

There is an interesting movie, "Flash of Genius," about Robert Kearns, an inventor and his interactions with Ford over the "delayed windshield wiper."

I won't reveal any details over the movie plot but there is a short scene where Kearns is lecturing his engineering students about engineering ethics, which reminds me of a documentary by PBS: "NOVA: Holocaust on Trial" (2000)

I cannot find this last movie anywhere, but <youtube> has it available. Should be mandatory viewing for engineers, but it is difficult to watch or listen to the details.
1 comments
tabtab 2699 days ago
The delayed windshield wiper case is not cut and dry (no pun intended). With solid-state electronics (SSE), a delay circuit using capacitors is relatively easy to create. Patents are supposed to be "non-obvious". SSE's were relatively new in the early 60's, but once people got practical experience with them, a delay circuit is obvious to practitioner in that line of work, which in theory should make it non-patentable.

It's kind of like "doing X on the Web" patents where X itself is common and/or unpatentable. Adding web-ness shouldn't change the patentability of X, but for some odd reason it has. When new parts and tools come along, they make the mundane possibly seem innovative for a while until people or judges understand that the new tools are not magic.

The web-based-auction patents are an example. They simply automated manual auctions; any programmer/analyst with industry experience can do that. Running it in a browser didn't make it special, but that apparently bedazzled patent reviewers. (Copyrights can cover look and feel, but I'm talking about functionality.)

The patent office simply does not take seriously, "must be non-obvious to persons having ordinary skill in the art". If 90% of experienced programmer/analysts can code up a web auction system, it's not obvious.

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