Newman v. Quigg

• Decision Date: 26 February 1988
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 83-0001.
• Citation: 681 F. Supp. 16,5 USPQ 2d 1880
• Parties: Joseph W. NEWMAN, Plaintiff, v. Donald J. QUIGG, Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

681 F. Supp. 16

5 USPQ 2d 1880

Joseph W. NEWMAN, Plaintiff, v. Donald J. QUIGG, Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks, Defendant.

Civ. A. No. 83-0001.

United States District Court, District of Columbia.

February 17, 1988.

As Amended February 26, 1988.

John P. Flannery, II, Leesburg, Va., for plaintiff.

Fred E. McKelvey, Office of the Solicitor, Arlington, Va., for defendant.

DECISION AND ORDER

JACKSON, District Judge.

Plaintiff Joseph W. Newman, of Lucedale, Mississippi, an inventor, sues Donald J. Quigg, U.S. Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks, in his official capacity as head of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ("Patent Office" or "PTO") pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 145. Newman is an "applicant dissatisfied" with the decision of the Board of Appeals affirming an examiner's rejection in Newman's application for a patent for an invention he entitles: "Energy Generation System Having Higher Energy Output Than Input."¹ Upon the following facts, as found by the Court in accordance with Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a), upon trial without a jury, the Court concludes, for the reasons stated, that judgment must be given for defendant and the complaint dismissed with prejudice.

I.

On August 18, 1980, Newman filed the instant application with the PTO for a U.S. patent for his invention. In the "abstract" section of his application he describes it, in pertinent part, as:

A system for generating obvious work motion, or electromagnetic energy (fields of force) or electric current, utilizing the electromagnetic energy which makes up all matter and results in a greater output of energy, than the initial input of conventional energy means and teachings. This is accomplished by arranging one or a variety of mechanical situations, whereby matter is converted into usable and controllable electrical or magnetic energy in an extremely efficient manner which mechanically achieves the degree of energy releaseable from matter in accordance with Einstein's equation of E = MC2. sic

The system utilizes the gyroscopic actions of the electromagnetic field particles in which the structural elements of the generator place a force at an angle to the gyroscopic particles causing the particles to follow paths having a net directional effect, producing electric current flow.

Copy of the Contents of U.S. Patent Application, Serial No. 179, 474, filed August 18, 1980, by Joseph Westley Newman (hereinafter "Joint Exhibit") Vol. I., p. 7.

In his discussion of the "prior art" he observes that all other systems for the production of electrical energy (e.g. mechanical friction, thermo-electricity, photoelectricity, piezoelectricity, electrochemistry, and electromagnetic induction)

are designed accordingly sic to rigid mathematical laws taught both in physics and electrical engineering which coincide with the hypothesis rigidly accepted by the industrial and scientific communities concerning the Second Law of Thermodynamics (1850) ... viz., that the electric current flowing in a closed circuit from a battery, electric generator, etc., is used up in the mechanical device being operated ...; that all such ... systems would only put out at most work equal to the work initially put into the system ... and that a particular electrical generating system was only capable of a given output of energy and no more.

Id. at 9-10.

"The prior art," he asserts, "has failed to understand certain physical aspects of matter and the makeup of electromagnetic fields, which failure is corrected by the present invention." His many years of research, consideration, evaluation and inventing have revealed to him certain "principles or guidelines," namely, that "all matter is made up of electromagnetic energy; ... that electromagnetic energy comprises quanta or particles of energy moving at the speed of light and having spin characteristics ... and that these electromagnetic energy quanta behave in accordance with the normal laws of mechanics and, in particular, in accordance with the principles of gyroscopic action." Utilizing these principles, he says, his invention will produce "more efficient" electrical motors and generators from "materials and designs heretofore considered ... impractical, if not impossible." Id. at 11-12.

Newman then describes the six drawings representing various "embodiments" of his invention (Figs. 1-6 to his application)² and continues with an explanation of "related principles" he has discovered: contrary to contemporary teaching that the magnetic field associated with an electric current-carrying conductor results from the electric current itself,

the gyroscopic particles making up the electric current ... interact with the electromagnetic makeup of the atoms of the conductor, causing them to align extremely rapidly, thereby then releasing some of their electromagnetic make-up in the form of a magnetic field....

* * * * * *

The magnetic field is the result of the atom alignment of the conductor. The more atoms in a conductor (up to a point), the stronger the magnetic field produced from a given amount of electric current input.... The reasons for this is that there are more conducting atoms to interact with the gyroscopic particles of the electric current moving through the conductor, which results in a greater number of conducting atoms being aligned, thereby then releasing some of their electromagnetic make-up....

Id. at 22-24.

On August 24, 1981, and again on January 6, 1982, the first patent examiner rejected Newman's application under 35 U.S. C. § 112, first paragraph.³ Newman appealed to the Board of Appeals, comprised of three examiners-in-chief, who unanimously affirmed the first examiner's rejection on November 5, 1982. The Board said:

We do not doubt that a worker in this art with appellant's specification before him could construct a motor ... as shown in Fig. 6 of the drawing. Such a motor would not and could not be made to operate at an efficiency level of greater than 100%.... Such a machine is impossible. If it were possible ... some of the output energy developed could be fed back into the input and the machine would work forever without any external source of energy. Such machines are known as perpetual motion machines.... Machines of this type will not work. They violate either the first or the second law of thermodynamics.

* * * * * *

When a patent applicant presents an application describing an invention that contradicts known scientific principles the burden is on the examiner simply to point out this fact to appellant.... The burden shifts to appellant to demonstrate either that his invention, as claimed, does not violate basic scientific principles or that those basic scientific principles are incorrect. In this case, appellant has attempted to do the first; he has invoked the mass-energy equivalence doctrine of Albert Einstein.

* * * * * *

There have been limited applications of the doctrine of mass energy equivalence. The scientific community has managed to obtain what is commonly known as atomic power.... The relationship between ... atom splitting technique and appellant's invention is unclear from the description.

* * * * * *

Certain of appellant's claims embrace within their confines ... appellant's theory that he is somehow converting mass into energy in accordance with Einstein's equation E = mC2. There is no evidence before us that appellant has done that, nor is there any disclosure which would enable anyone having ordinary skill in the art to do it. (Emphasis in original).

* * * * * *

The only independent claim before us which does not directly embrace appellant's theory ... has the basic infirmity that it recites that appellant obtains more energy out of his apparatus than he puts in. This is impossible unless some of the mass of the device is converted to energy in accordance with appellant's theory. Therefore, appellant's theory is also claimed by implication. No evidence before us of any nature or description establishes that appellant's apparatus achieves a mass-energy conversion.

Joint Exhibit, Vol. IV, pp. 715-18.

Newman's complaint in this Court was filed January 3, 1983, and prayed for trial de novo, reversal of the "judgment" of the Board of Appeals, and an order directing the Commissioner to issue letters patent to him. Newman alleged that he was "the original and first inventor" of an energy generation system having higher energy output than input, a result he achieved "by producing an internal conversion of matter into energy in a way heretofore never achieved." Defendant answered with a general denial, and asserted that the examiners had correctly rejected plaintiff's application on the ground of 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph.

After a protracted, and acrimonious, period of pretrial motions, appeals, and discovery disputes lasting until late 1986, The case came on for trial on December 6, 1986.⁴

II.

Newman called three witnesses in support of his claim that a patent should issue: a physicist (with a doctoral degree), presently the manager of a superconductive electronics technical center for Unisys Corporation in St. Paul, Minnesota; a mechanical engineer (with a bachelor's degree) now working for the State of Mississippi's Bureau of Geology; and a maintenance engineer (sans degree) for a New Orleans television station.⁵ All three, originally skeptics, are now converts to Newman's faith in his device as a truly revolutionary mechanism. The latter two have invested with him. They have each observed a "Newman device" in operation on several occasions, speak knowledgeably about what they observed (and in some cases measured) on those occasions, and are not inherently incredible. The "Newman device" of which they testify has been given several incarnations, but each resembles an unremarkable conventional electrically powered motor/generator in most particulars, differing primarily only in the extraordinary length of its copper wire coil. It is in the powers Newman's witnesses ascribe...