A PATENT dispute over the intermittent windshield wiper may not sound like ideal fodder for a major motion picture. But Flash of Genius, opening next month in the US, will be worth seeing if it tells the story of inventor Robert Kearns as well as John Seabrook does in the title story of his collection of articles from The New Yorker.

Driving in the rain in 1962, Kearns realised the wipers should be more like his eyelids: sweeping across the glass – and obscuring his view – only occasionally. He patented his design for these “blinking eye wipers” and …