The author of the article is dead wrong on (at least) one point. I've read the entire patent in question, and it says quite plainly that the device converts magnetic energy to electricty, with the magnetic energy comning from a permanent magnet, and the permanent magnet becoming de-magnetized (or less magnetized) in the process.
You are also correct, design patents are available, but design patents are only enforcible for the ornamental aspect of an object, and are not useflu to protect any functional value.
Thanks for reading the patent and commenting. That part, the conversion of energy to another form of energy is okay, although whether this particular operation would be commercially useful seems doubtful. A physicist might do that in the lab to measure some magnetic phenomenon. But remagnetizing the permanent magnet would be necessary to repeat the cycle. Lots of things have been patented that didn't turn out to be particularly useful. I was thinking of another magnetic machine 25 years ago where the patent was for the design of one of the magnets, not for the whole machine. Certain people are attracted to magnets, perhhaps an excess of iron in the blood.
Tesla's patent #396121 details a device for creating electric current by simply heating a magnet attracting an iron core attached to a spring; as the magnetic force lessened from the heat, the spring overcame the attraction and swung the core through a coil producing a measurable current; by the time the pendulant force had reversed, the cooled magnet once again attracted the core until the heat again released it.
The admitted drawback to his scheme was that there is a critical point at which the heat permanently demagnetizes the "magnet."
His designs optimized the action to extend as long as feasible the effect.
Such a device could be employed to make a "bobbing head," I would imagine.