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He is best known for inventing the intermittent windshield wiper mechanism, which has become a standard feature in most cars worldwide. Kearns went on to win multimillion-dollar patent infringement cases against Ford Motor and Chrysler for using his idea, a legal battle that later became the basis for a biographical feature film, Flash of Genius, in Kearns was born in Gary, Indiana in Kearns had been an excellent student, and after the war, received a full scholarship to the University of Detroit, where he earned a BSc degree in Mechanical Engineering, and later a Msc in Engineering Mechanics from Wayne State University, Detroit.

In , Kearns joined the faculty of Wayne State University, Department of Engineering Mechanics, rising to a post as associate professor He went on to work as an engineer for several companies, including Bendix Aerospace Systems and Philco Corporation. In , while Kearns and his new wife Phyllis were on honeymoon in Canada, a champagne bottle was opened during a celebration.

Its cork flew across the room, striking Kearns in his left eye, causing him to lose most of the vision in it. A decade later, in Kearns was driving his Ford Galaxie through a light rain, and the constant movement of the wiper blades irritated his vision.

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Kearns thus conceived his invention of an automatic windshield wiper system that would vary the speed of the wipers based on the amount of precipitation on the windshield. Kearns became determined to develop his invention and bring it to market. Building a laboratory in his basement, he founded his own company, Kearns Electronics, and began refining his concept over the next decade, constructing models using the dashboards of salvaged cars to test his invention.

His first patent for the invention was filed on 1 December Kearns claims that whilst the Ford managers were noncommittal, they did seem interested — and indeed Ford later called Kearns for a second meeting where he met many engineers eager to question him on his invention, and show him an intermittent windshield wiper system of their own they were planning on installing in its Mercury cars.

After several years refining his invention, in Kearns filed for numerous more patents for his design.