In the beginning of the movie when he was wanting to sue Ford, Bob asked his lawyer about the patents, his lawyer said that there was a long wait to get it heard in the patents court. Why were his patents invalid and expired? I don't understand this.
"Made it, Ma! Top of the world!"
They weren't invalid. One of Ford's defenses was that they were invalid; the jury found otherwise.
They weren't expired, but the battle had been going on so long that they were due to expire before long.
Also there was disagreement as to what classifies as an "invention." The Big Three claimed that since any other engineer would've solved the problem eventually, there should not have been a patent on the windshield wiper in the first place.
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"Made it, Ma! Top of the world!"
I saw this a few years ago, so I might be wrong. Didn't his so-called friend trick him into showing Ford execs the wipers without having them sign an NDA (or some similar agreement)?
http://youtu.be/oHg5SJYRHA0