They need to actually work.
Someone claims to have an invention that makes more energy than it consumes, and asks for a patent. The patent office, aware of various laws of physics, recognizes that energy can not be created or destroyed, but converted in various forms, and that no one has found a way to make the third law of thermodynamics (entropy of the universe is increasing)null and void ... refuses to issue a patent - because to do so would be to suggest that the Patent Office believes that the 3rd law of thermodynamics is no longer valid.
The "inventor" then claims his rights are violated ... issues conspiracy alerts (put on tin foil hats please!) ... and asks for a letter righting campaign to the Patent Office.
As said before ... this has been going on for DECADES.
I figure that if someone HAD discovered a new principle - that they would have gone further to make an operational model that would work for hours or days ... and then they could take the working model to the Patent Office and insist on getting a patent. But the "inventor" claims that to make a fully operational model would place their intellectual property rights at risk ... so they don't finish the development of a working model. (Adjust tin foi please.)
Problem is, the "test models" use a motor (energy input) to set a rotor spinning. The brief power output from the model is less than the energy inputted by the motor. These "inventions" have been around for decades. They don't work. Any one with an engineering degree or physics degree can provide the equations to show why the concepts are flawed ... and never has an "inventor" ever proven his concepts are based on ANY sound physics principles, never have they developed a working model.
But our general public, poorly educated in scientific principles, might be swayed into believing that the poor "inventor" is oppressed by the horrible and mean Patent Office. (But it is all b.s.!)
Mike, B.S., M.S., P.E.