What is novelty?

I had always believed in the idea of doing something significant and highly original is the exemplary way to go in life; not only to serve for one's own pride or motives or fame, but also to be able to attain the fulfillment of contributing to the society.

And thus I recall the life is of Robert Kearns, the man who invented the intermittent windshield wiper which has been used in the automobile business since 1969 up till date, the man who invented the wiper system which had enables all of us to have variable speeds on the wipers that we are using in our cars today. He may not be a famous name to all of us, not as much as Alexander Graham Bell who invented the telephone or Einstein's discoveries, but nevertheless he is an inventor who fought for the right of his invention.

Kearns won a highly publicized lawsuit against the Ford Motor Company back in the 70s for infringement of the wiper patterns that he had created back in 1964. Throughout the trial, the motor company had vehemently denied that Kearns is qualified to call himself an inventor, as he has, according to them, simply 're-arranged' the pattern in a new way and that it isn't actually ground breaking or inventive or original.

However, there was a wonderful response by Kearns in regards to these claims. During the trial, Kearns (who is representing himself) asked his son to bring Charles Dickens' novel A Tale of Two Cities to the court, and asked the witness in the stands (a Ford employee who made that statement of Kearns not being an inventor) whether he had read this book. After confirming that he had, like most people in the court have, Kearns recited the first sentence of the book, and then took up a dictionary and checked up each word in that one sentence. He asked the man in the stands that since all the words in that first sentence are words that come from the dictionary, would Charles Dickens' novel be considered a copy or a non-original work? Would it not make Charles Dickens an inventor? All the Charles Dickens did was, afterall, to arrange the words that were available to him in a new pattern to create this novel, and the work was definitely original. Why then, is Kearns' invention being rendered as not original enough?

Kearns added that an inventor is whichever person who manages to use what tools are available to him/her, and create something new using the tools. And in Kearns' dictionary, the bars are not too high to become an inventor- just look around you, make best use of the tools that are available, find what is your specialty and gift, and you might one day become a creator as well, and more than that, you might become a person who contributes to the society, and you would earn yourself the license to live a fulfilling life.

Robert W. Kearns won 18.7 million US dollars in that lawsuit against Ford. A 2008 Hollywood movie called Flash of Genius documents his travails in his fight to earn his right as an inventor. He rejected a 30 million US dollars out of court settlement despite his divorce and his flaundering career- just because Ford would refuse to damage their company's reputation by admitting they infringed his patterns.

He died in 2005 of brain cancer. He was 77, and dies was an inventor, a contributor to the society. Look at your windshield wiper, and this is the man who created the pattern that enables you to vary the speed of your wipers according to the intensity of the rain.