From: Jay 
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 1994 02:22:10 GMT

    I follow patent developments quite a bit, and recall the Newman's
    case.  What happened (no references, relying on memory) is that after
    Newman was rejected by the U.S. Patent Office (the Commish in effect
    said "Fine, if your device can put out more energy than it takes in --
    and assuming no storage-- then build a working model, and we'll test
    it." Newman did this, but insisted that the U.S Bureau of Standards
    (NBS) or NHIS, I think is their latest acronym) do a non-evasive test,
    and that he closely supervise it.
    
    The NBS refused, or more likely Newman got pissed, so he hired an
    attorney (trivia question:  this attorney ended up running for Congress
    as a Representative, and lost to Rep. Frank Wolf) and sued in the U.S.
    District Court.  This was his legal right--anybody can do this, so the
    above quote is misleading.
    
    Anyhow, the Judge said in effect what the Commish said, and when the
    NBS finally got around to testing the device as they wanted to (without
    destroying it, which was Newman's main concern I believe, and the fact
    that in essence Newman was on a publicity stunt --recall the guy is
    from Louisianna, and he was making money charging people to see the
    device, not to mention talk shows) the NBS found that Newman's device
    was a "dead" battery being switched on and off, so that "peak power"
    was being detected, while average power was close to zero.  You can
    achieve the same effect from switching a dead transistor radio on and
    off--even with a dead battery, you can get a few seconds of sound.
    Physically, I believe the electrons bunch near the terminals, but I'm
    not a physicist.  Anyhow, such a device does not violate the First or
    Second Laws.  The claim that more energy came out than went in came
    from comparing apples to oranges-- peak power versus average power.
    Can't do that.
    
    So, the judge ruled the device was unpatentable, and Newman went away,
    poorer but wiser (then again, he probably knew it was a hoax all
    along).
    
    A side note is that Newman filed for European Patent protection, and in
    Europe they publish all applications after a while, so I actually got a
    hold of Newman's patent application (it was a long one) and checked out
    the bogus "theory".  Pretty boring reading, really, unless you like
    crackpot science.
    [...]