In1964 Robert Kearns invented the intermittent windshield wiper. But it would be 26 years and take more than a decade of litigation before he reaped the rewards of his invention. Payday for Kearns finally arrived in 1990 when Ford Motor paid him more than $10 million to settle the patent infringement lawsuit he brought against the company. Recalling Kearns’s story, which was turned into the 2008 feature film Flash of Genius, seems an appropriate lead-in for today’s blog on how to make money from your patent.