In the movie “Flesh of Genius”, directed by Marc Abraham and based on the true story, Bob Kearns during his lecture at the university writes one simple word on the blackboard. This word is ‘ethics’. From Kearns’ point of view, ethics is more important thing than engineering. Actually, what is ethics? Velasquez, Andre, Shanks, and Meyer (2015) suggest that ethics contains rules that tell people what they ought to do. “Ethical standards include standards relating to rights” (Velasquez et al., 2015).
Gil Previck is Kearns’ partner who initially helps him to realize the idea of producing windshield wipers. He makes an appointment for the inventor with Ford engineers. They liked the idea as they had already been working on it too, but could not manage to invent it. However, the Ford Company decides to respect no rules and steals Kearns’ idea with the help of a prototype.
Bob Kearns is full of desire to prove the whole world that his idea was stolen. He asks his partner Previck, who is also a friend of his, for help but he refuses to assist Bob with bringing the case to court. Previck was a respectful person in Detroit and not a poor one. He earned 14 million dollars for the last year dealing with Ford and that is why he was afraid to lose credibility by engaging in the case. It was not nice of Previck to turn his back on his friend at such hard times. However, I truly believe that there were serious reasons for that kind of behavior. Previck had a family and children. He was responsible for their future; he had to provide for his family. We can clearly see what happened with Kearns’ family because of the undeclared war with Ford Company. He practically lost it. His wife broke up with him, children cut him off, he felt lonely and isolated, but still pursuing justice. Previck was not as passionate about justice as Kearns. For Previck family matters and his reputation were in the first flight.
How to Protect the Idea
Bob Kearns, an engineer by profession, was not aware enough with the US law system that is why he fell into a trap of Ford Company. There are many ways in which people may protect their ideas from being stolen. The first and the major way is obtaining the patent. However, there are other ways of protecting your ideas without having a patent. These ways consist in signing appropriate agreements. According to Stephen Key (2013), there exist legal tools, which will help you to protect the idea. Mainly, there are three types of agreements. They are non-disclosure agreement, non-compete agreement and work-for-hire agreement. Let us consider each of them separately and imagine what effects they could bring to Bob Kearns.
The non-disclosure agreement is the most effective way to protect your rights as an inventor. This type of agreement is also called confidentiality agreement, as it obliges the participants of the agreement to keep in secret all mentioned in the contract information. In other words, it commits people who signed it to confidentiality (Key, 2013).
If Bob Kearns signed such an agreement with Ford Company, he would have had the possibility to go to court and not to wait so many years. Alternatively, there would not even appear such a necessity because of Ford’s awareness of the seriousness of their actions. It is obvious from the film that Ford Company worried about its reputation. It was a magnificent company and it still remains as such.
The second type of agreement as suggested by Key (2013) is non-compete agreement. According to Nolo (n. d.), non-compete agreement can not only protect you from losing your employees, but to protect the confidential information as well. There are certain rules which non-compete agreement must follow. These agreements must be reasonable. Mainly, they must cover reasonable duration of time.
I think that Kearns should have asked Previck to sign a non-compete agreement. In that case, he would testify in court and significantly help in settling the lawsuit. It would accelerate considerably the desired outcome. Consequently, Kearns’ wife would not leave him alone, obsessed with the need for justice. This idea even affected his mental health.
The last type of agreement is work-for-hire agreement. According to the library of Congress, (2012) “copyright law protects a work from the time it is created in a fixed form”. The copyright is considered the author’s property. In case you hire somebody to assist with your idea, ensure that you hold all the improvements referring to that idea. In this case, people helping you will be indicated in the patent as co-authors but the idea itself will belong to you, so they would not have any authorities over your invention (Key, 2013).
Bob Kearns could also insure himself form the idea theft with the help of this agreement. Nevertheless, he did not do that. There was nobody to advise him to appeal to lawyers, people who knew what to do in such situations, and were professionally knowledgeable.
In conclusion it should be said, that nowadays as well as in the past, it is very important to know your rights. Otherwise, you cannot be protected from encroaching upon your rights and property. Bob Kearns is a distinct example of such person. However, he managed to do without a lawyer in the court and to represent his interests by himself, which sometimes looked a little bit funny, though it displayed an example to follow. Bob Kearns managed to win the lawsuit and to show all of us how important it is not to lose heart and confidently approach your aim.
References
Key, Stephen (2013). Entrepreneur. How to protect your business idea without a patent. Retrieved from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/226595
Library of Congress (2012). Works made for hire. Retrieved from http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ09.pdf
Nolo (n. d.). Noncompete agreements: How to create an agreement you can enforce. Retrieved from http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/noncompete-agreements-how-create-agreement-29784.html
Velasquez, M., Andre, S., Shanks, T., & Meyer, M. J. (2015). Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. What is ethics? Retrieved from https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/what-is-ethics/
