My answers to Questionaire

Would you have accepted the $250,000 without the acknowledgment that the invention was yours?

I don't think I would.

Would you have accepted $30 million dollars without the acknowledgement?

Wow, does my integrity depend upon the price offered for it? Hmm. I believe I would have taken the $30 million -- and with a big smile. My integrity might have gone right out the window.

If you were Bob’s wife, would you have left him because you couldn’t live with his obsession of making this right in the face of insurmountable obstacles?

I truly can't answer this. Maybe I wasn't happy living with him and his righting the wrong would have been the excuse I was waiting for to leave.  It would have been hard to stay living with him when my heart couldn't rally behind him. I sure hope I wouldn't give him an ultimatum which it appears the wife did. "If you continue with this, I leave." Would she really have been happy if he stopped? For how long would she have stayed?

If you were his children, would you have been disappointed in your father for not letting anything stop him?

If their mother had been behind their father, I think they would have been too and not have been disappointed in him. As it was, they seemed to see their father as a loser, until near the end of his fight when he seemed to be getting somewhere.  I can't help but see Bob Kearns as a man of great courage and fortitude.

My family dynamics were different. I can't imagine not being behind my father.

If you were Bill Kearns, would you have turned down everyone’s advice to quit, including psychiatrists’ advice? If you were Bob Kearns, would you have continued your full-time fight for twelve years?

I would probably have quit, especially without encouragement from those around me.  But I also wouldn't have felt good about myself for quitting. I would have seen quitting as having taken the cowardly way. I wouldn't have been able to take the whole thing lightly. Of course, if I had had all your input, I might have seen the whole thing from new eyes. To quit while feeling good about the decision would be quite a different thing from quitting and feeling ashamed.

If you were Bob Kearns’ family and friends, would you say Bill had been right to do as he did only if he won?  Is that what your opinion would be based on — the results?

That's not what I would want to feel, but, if he had lost, I can hear myself saying that he wasted twelve good years etc. What's that expression? The success is in the pudding!

Of course, if he had been one of many who lost his case, or never even got it to court, we never would have heard about him to have an opinion about.

As it is, I am grateful to Bob Kearns. I am glad he exposed that car manufacturer. I would not want to buy a car from that company.