Tension-Leg Floating Wind Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
Filing growth compares 2021 (74 records) with 2024 (112) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 968 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Tension-leg platforms (TLPs) anchor a floating wind turbine with taut vertical tethers rather than the catenary chains used by spar and semi-submersible designs, trading buoyancy-driven stability for tendon tension. This landscape draws on 968 published patent records filed or published between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine tension-leg or tethered-platform language with floating or offshore wind turbine terms. It spans hull and column geometry, ballast systems, mooring and tendon hardware, dynamic power cabling, and the foundations that anchor the tendons to the seabed.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 figures in any trend line are still filling in — they should be read as a floor, not a ceiling, on real filing activity in those years.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 968-record set: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Annual filings rose from 78 in 2017 to a peak of 112 in 2024, up 51% over the 2021–2024 span; 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete due to publication lag, so the apparent tail-off there is an artefact of timing, not of interest cooling.
IPC subclass composition
Records can carry more than one IPC class, so the shares below sum to more than 100% of the 968 records: B63B (ships & marine vessels) leads at 62.5%, F03D (wind motors) follows at 53.7%, then E02B, E02D and F03B each in single digits, with D07B and H02G — rope/cable and power-cable installation — under 5%.
Shares are the percentage of the 968 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Floating Offshore Wind — Tension-Leg Floating-Wind Platforms Patent Landscape with Eureka
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Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited prior art
Flare-type tensile legs floating wind turbine base (US20160195070A1)
Filed by Goldwind Science & Technology, this 2016 application describes a flare-type tension-leg foundation: a top support platform for the tower and turbine, a bottom support structure connected to multiple tension legs, at least three hollow columns splayed outward from the bottom structure to the top platform, and a ballast-adjusting system housed in those columns.The outward-flared column geometry combined with an internal ballast-adjusting system is the specific structural combination worth checking against before designing a new column layout.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20070243063A1 | Offshore wind turbine structures and methods therefor | 183 |
| 2 | US20080240864A1 | Assembly, transportation and installation of deepwater windpower plant | 125 |
| 3 | US20100219645A1 | Power generation assemblies and apparatus | 100 |
| 4 | US7293960B2 | Power generation assemblies, and apparatus for use therewith | 95 |
| 5 | WO2011137903A2 | Semi-submerged multiple wind-turbine system | 87 |
| 6 | US20110215650A1 | Offshore energy harvesting, storage, and power generation system | 74 |
| 7 | WO2017157399A1 | A floating wind turbine and a method for the installation of such floating wind turbine | 73 |
| 8 | US20060171798A1 | Power generation assemblies, and apparatus for use therewith | 71 |
| 9 | US20120183359A1 | Installation method for water-submersible platforms and installation vessel | 65 |
| 10 | US20200269960A1 | Motion-attenuated semi-submersible floating-type foundation for supporting a wind power generation system | 50 |
Citation counts are drawn from within this searched corpus and skew toward older filings that have had more time to accumulate citations — read them as a signal of influence on later designs, not as a ranking of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the filing pattern tells you
Four read-outs from the same dataset, each pointing at a different decision: where claim space is dense, where it is thin, and where momentum is actually moving.
A lead, not a lock
The five leading assignees account for 195 of the 968 records in scope, and the ten leading assignees reach 34.6%. That leaves the majority of filings spread across a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants — real headroom for a newcomer with a distinct structural approach.
Hulls are crowded, tendons are not
Marine-vessel and hull-structure claims (B63B) touch 62.5% of the 968 records and wind-turbine claims (F03D) touch 53.7%. Rope and cable hardware (D07B) sits at just 4.0% and power-cable installation (H02G) at 3.6% — the tendon and dynamic-cable side of the system is thinly claimed by comparison.
Growth is real through the last complete year
Complete-year filings climbed from 74 in 2021 to 112 in 2024, the peak year in the dataset. Years after 2024 will look lower purely because publication has not caught up yet, not because filing activity has slowed.
Europe and the US are close behind each other
Europe (EPO) leads slightly with 210 filings, the United States follows with 200, and WIPO PCT filings reach 147 — a sign that applicants are routing a large share of this technology through international and European channels rather than filing nationally first.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to floating offshore wind — tension-leg floating-wind platforms patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Where to take this from here
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, a filing strategy, or scouting a licensing or acquisition target.
Check claim scope before drafting new column or hull geometry
With B63B and F03D covering more than half of all 968 records, a new hull or column design needs a claim-by-claim comparison against the most-cited prior art before drafting begins.
Explore claims in Eureka →Target the thin classes for defensible filings
Rope and cable hardware, and power-cable installation, sit under 5% of records each — a narrower field to search and a better ratio of open claim space to filing effort.
Run a white space search in Eureka →Track the leaders' recent-year activity, not lifetime totals
Several historically active filers show no filings in the latest year, while others are accelerating — recent-year momentum is a more current signal than cumulative counts.
Monitor assignee activity in Eureka →Common questions on tension-leg floating wind patents
This landscape identifies 968 published patent records filed or published between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine tension-leg or tethered-platform terminology with floating or offshore wind turbine terms. That figure counts patent families in the assignee ranking, which is the fairer unit than raw document counts because it neutralises repeat filings of the same invention across jurisdictions. The true current total is somewhat higher because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so recent filings are still being added to the public record.
The five leading assignees together hold 195 of the 968 records in scope, about 20.1% of the field, and the ten leading assignees reach 34.6%. That is real concentration at the top but far from a lock: the sixth through hundredth-ranked filers still account for the majority of records, and several of the most active historical filers show no filings in the latest year, suggesting shifting rather than static leadership. Anyone assessing competitive position should look at recent-year filing counts, not just cumulative totals.
Yes, through the last year the data can treat as complete. Filings rose from 74 in 2021 to a peak of 112 in 2024, a 51% increase over that span. Filing counts for 2025 and 2026 appear lower in the raw data, but that reflects publication lag rather than a real slowdown, since patent applications typically take around 18 months to appear in public databases after filing.
Ship and marine-vessel structural claims (IPC class B63B) touch 62.5% of the 968 records, and wind-turbine claims (F03D) touch 53.7%, making hull and turbine architecture the most heavily contested ground. Hydraulic and waterway engineering, foundations, and hydraulic machinery each sit in single-digit shares. Rope and cable hardware and power-cable installation are the thinnest classes tracked here, both under 5% of records, which points to comparatively open claim space around mooring tendons and dynamic export cabling.
The clearest gaps sit around tendon and mooring hardware, dynamic power cable fatigue management, and vibration damping for tension legs — all classes with single-digit shares of the 968 records compared with the 60%-plus coverage of hull and turbine claims. These are narrower technical areas, which also means a well-targeted filing there faces less prior art to design around. Any white-space claim should still be checked against the most-cited prior art in the dataset before drafting, since citation leaders often cover foundational structural concepts that later filings build on.
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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.