Fixed-Bottom Offshore Wind Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Five ranked filers cover the entire scope. The assignee ranking returns only five companies, and together they account for 100% of all 23 records in scope — there is no long tail here to speak of.
- Gravity foundation claims dominate the citation table. The two most-cited records in this dataset are both gravity-foundation patents, one of them cited 31 times — a strong signal of where prior art is thickest.
- Filing activity peaked in 2023, then the count runs to zero. The trend shows 13 records in the peak year against a 2017 baseline of zero, though the most recent years are understated by publication lag.
Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 23 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks patent records at the intersection of fixed-bottom foundation structures — monopiles and gravity foundations — and the turbine control and installation systems built on top of them. The search combines foundation-specific language with turbine operating terms such as wind speed, rotor torque and blade pitch, so the scope is narrower than offshore wind as a whole: it is the structural-plus-control overlap, not floating platforms or pure electrical generation.
Twenty-three published records sit in scope across the 2015-2026 window. That is a small, concentrated field rather than a sprawling one, which is itself informative: it means the handful of assignees that do appear carry disproportionate weight in setting the prior art a new filer has to work around.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 23 records: when they were filed, and which IPC subclasses they carry.
Filing trend
Filings rose from zero in 2017 to a peak of 13 records in 2023 before the count runs back down toward the data cut-off. With fewer than four complete years once the roughly 18-month publication lag is accounted for, no growth rate can be stated reliably — the 2023 peak is the clearest read available.
Technology composition (IPC subclass)
Wind motors (F03D) appear on 69.6% of the 23 records, confirming that turbine-level claims are the largest single category. Cranes and hoists (B66C) at 56.5% and marine vessels (B63B) at 52.2% show that installation and logistics claims are nearly as prevalent as the turbines themselves — a sign that assembly method, not just hardware, is contested ground. Foundations and earth drilling (E02D) sits at just 21.7%, and specialised structures (E04H) and hydraulic engineering (E02B) trail further behind, at 8.7% and 4.3% respectively.
Shares are the percentage of the 23 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
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Try EurekaThe most-cited records
A device and a method for facilitating assembling of a wind turbine (US20250223945A1)
The filing describes an assembling structure with a defined space for a wind turbine tower and nacelle, a hoisting device that handles the tower and lifts the nacelle into place from within that space, a hoisting device support structure mounted on top of the assembling structure, a support arrangement that holds a portion of the turbine while inside the space, and a rotor blade handling element.Filed by Frigstad Engineering (Norway) AS, published 2025-07-10 — the most recent substantial filing in this dataset.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | EP2559814A1 | Gravity foundation | 31 |
| 2 | GB2558242A | Installing or uninstalling components of a wind turbine | 16 |
| 3 | GB2493720A | Gravity foundation for an offshore structure | 4 |
| 4 | EP2559814B1 | Gravity foundation | 3 |
| 5 | GB201622057D0 | Installing or uninstalling components of a wind turbine | 1 |
Citation counts reward older filings by default — treat these as markers of influence on later filers, not as evidence that the underlying design is still the best available option.
Publication numbers are shown where the record carries one (5 of 5 rows); clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three readings of the same 23-record dataset, aimed at where to file and where not to.
No long tail to exploit
The assignee ranking lists five companies, and between them they account for the entirety of the 23 records in scope. There is no fragmented population of single-filing entrants to slip a claim past — anyone filing here is filing directly against, or alongside, one of five known players.
Gravity foundation claims are the reference point
The most-cited record in the dataset, a gravity foundation patent, carries 31 citations — well ahead of anything else in the table. A second gravity-foundation filing from the same family also appears in the top five. Foundation geometry claims here are the ones later filers have had to design around most often.
Activity is recent and lumpy, not steady
The trend runs from zero in 2017 to a peak of 13 records in 2023, then falls away toward the data cut-off. That shape points to a field that moved in a burst rather than building steadily — worth checking whether that burst tracks a specific project cycle or standard update before reading too much into the recent decline.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to fixed-bottom offshore wind patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the claims
Filing activity concentrates in a small set of assignees, with installation methods and foundation structures as the recurring subject matter.
One filer holds the largest single share
The leading assignee in the ranking accounts for 13 of the 23 records in scope — more than half the entire dataset. That scale of concentration means a freedom-to-operate check in this space should start with this filer's family before looking anywhere else.
Even the smallest ranked filer holds multiple records
The fifth-ranked assignee still carries 2 records, meaning every company that appears in this ranking has filed more than once. There is no single-shot entrant among the five — each has built at least a small family.
Recent-year activity reads flat for everyone
None of the five ranked assignees show filings in the latest year of the dataset. Given the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication, this is most likely an artefact of the cut-off date rather than a genuine stop in activity — but it means the most current competitive picture is not yet visible in the public record.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| FRIGSTAD ENG (NORWAY) AS | 0 | — |
| GRAVITAS OFFSHORE | 0 | — |
| Equinor Energy | 0 | — |
| Arup (Ove Arup & Partners International Limited) | 0 | — |
| ODFJELL OCEANWIND AS | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The dataset points to a concentrated field with a clear citation anchor and thinner coverage in a few adjacent branches.
Check freedom to operate against the leader first
With one assignee holding 13 of 23 records, any new filing in this space should be checked against that portfolio before anything else.
Explore assignee families in EurekaMap the gravity-foundation citation cluster
The two most-cited records both cover gravity foundations — understanding what they block, and what has been filed since, shapes any new foundation claim.
Trace citation networks in EurekaWatch the thinner IPC branches for openings
Hydraulic engineering, specialised structures and earth-drilling methods carry far fewer records than the turbine and installation classes, which may mean less-crowded claim space rather than lower relevance.
Search IPC subclasses in EurekaCommon questions about fixed-bottom offshore wind patents
The dataset's assignee ranking returns five companies, and together they account for all 23 records in scope, so there is no fragmented long tail to track separately. The leading assignee alone holds 13 records, more than half the field, while the fifth-ranked company still holds 2. Anyone assessing freedom to operate in this space should treat this small group as the complete competitive set rather than a sample of a larger population.
Wind motor claims under IPC class F03D appear on 69.6% of the 23 records, making turbine-level design the largest single category. Installation and logistics claims are close behind: cranes and hoists (B66C) sit at 56.5% and marine vessels (B63B) at 52.2%, showing that how a turbine is assembled offshore is nearly as contested as the turbine itself. Foundation-specific claims (E02D) trail at 21.7%, which is notable given that gravity foundations produce the two most-cited records in the dataset.
Patent publication typically lags the original filing date by around 18 months, so any dataset's most recent one to two years will understate real filing activity — the applications exist but have not yet published. In this dataset the trend peaks at 13 records in 2023 and then falls toward the 2026 cut-off, and that decline should be read as a data artefact of the cut-off date rather than a genuine slowdown until later publications catch up.
The top-cited record, cited 31 times, is a gravity foundation patent, and a second filing in the same family also appears among the most-cited records. Gravity foundations are a structural alternative to monopiles for shallow and medium-depth seabeds, and the density of citations against this record indicates it functions as a reference point that later foundation filings have had to differentiate from. A close reading of its claims is a reasonable starting point before drafting any new foundation-geometry claim.
The IPC composition thins out furthest in hydraulic and waterway engineering (E02B, 4.3% of records) and specialised offshore structures (E04H, 8.7%), compared with 69.6% for core turbine claims. Earth-drilling foundation methods (E02D) also sit well below the turbine and installation classes despite foundations being central to two of the most-cited records in the dataset. These thinner branches are worth checking directly rather than assumed to be empty, since low density can reflect either genuine openness or claims filed under different classification choices.
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.