In early cars, windshield wipers did not exist. But in case of rain or snow, leaning out of a moving car to clean the windshield was certainly not an ideal solution.
In 1903, the solution arrived on two different continents. Irishman James Henry Apjohn patented a method for the vertical movement of two brushes, hand-operated by the driver. In the same year, while riding on modern electric public transport in New York, Mary Anderson – a cattle rancher and viticulturist from Alabama – noticed that the driver was forced to drive with the side windows open to clear snow from the windshield. Back home, she designed and patented a device to solve the problem: a rubber-coated blade positioned on the outside of the windshield, manually operated by a lever inside the vehicle.
She tried to sell the patent, but without success. At the time, almost none of the few – and expensive – cars in circulation were equipped with windshields, so companies did not consider the device interesting. Mary Anderson let her patent expire in 1920, without gaining any benefit from her brilliant invention.
Things changed, however, with the arrival of the Ford Model T, the first car affordable enough to be purchased by American middle-class families: with many more cars on the road, and increasingly faster ones requiring protective glass for drivers and passengers, the windshield wiper was finally considered a useful accessory. In 1922, Cadillac was the first car manufacturer to offer windshield wipers as standard equipment on its vehicles.
In 1923, the idea of automating the movement of the rubber blade with an electric motor operated by a switch was conceived.
A new turning point came in 1969 with the appearance on the market of intermittent windshield wipers, designed and patented in 1964 by Robert Kearns. The invention is linked to one of the biggest legal battles over patent infringement, still remembered today. Kearns had tried to propose his invention to the three major US car manufacturers, General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler, and was rejected. Afterward, these companies proceeded to install intermittent windshield wipers on their cars, without recognizing Kearns's patent.
After a long and tenacious legal battle against Ford, Kearns won the case, setting an important precedent in the field of intellectual property.
