Joseph W. Newman’s device, which he termed an ‘Energy Generation System,’ sparked a legal battle that went all the way to federal appeals courts. After his patent was initially denied in 1979 as a ‘perpetual motion machine,’ Newman sued. A court-ordered Special Master, a former U.S. Commissioner of Patents, evaluated the evidence and concluded the patent should be granted. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ultimately sided with the Patent Office in 1989, upholding that t