if reading patents recorded from the begining (i think 1830), starting with the very 1st us pat 1, formulae is "I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the nature, construction, and operation thereof".
something changed meantime and bocome something like " it may work that way, or that way.etc".
to be on topic , few years ago I made small toy , as attached , and behaved very surprising , yet not in disagreement with present physics.
cylynders were made of aluminium tube recovered from shaving foam spray
between the cylinders connected a flexible tube, abt 3mm diameter and end of each tube connected to a small flexible baloon(no matter the collor
) and made fast to a rigid bar that turn around pivot point.
fill with water till abt 100ml into one baloon only and full pipe, another baloon squezed till no air remain in the system and then seal.
the "piston " were made of lead weights , may be a 50g, both the same, glued to a round washer that just pass nicely inside cylnder and glue also on the baloons.
initially the system is as per continuous line drawing, obviously the heavy part in right side dawn.
G1 start to move down and pushes thw water up , G2 is also comming down and create a slight vacuum , helping water even more to rise.
if you hold the system locked,full water transfer will be completed and releasing the system will rest somewhere the dotted line is.
to continue with rotation is needed to bring g2 where G1 was .
I've only made one set at that time and forgot already about it, may worth to try a bigger scale with more connected arms.
even IF will work, cannot say that is perpetuum mobile, still need the gravity to work, right?
about "converting" , not sure is the proper way of saying, earth will loose nothing gravity wise