Small & Distributed Wind Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Concentrated but not locked down. the top 5 assignees hold 21.3% of all 376 records in scope, and the top 10 hold 33.5% — leaving a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants room to move.
- Filing has cooled from its 2022 peak. activity ran from 41 records in 2017 to a high of 42 in 2022, then eased to 16 in 2024 — a -16% shift from 2021's 19, with 2025-26 still filling in behind an 18-month publication lag.
- The field is control software as much as hardware. F03D wind-motor claims cover 57.4% of records, but H02J grid/power-supply claims and G06F data-processing claims sit at 20.2% and 10.6% — sizeable software-adjacent territory inside a mechanical field.
Filing growth compares 2021 (19 records) with 2024 (16) — 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 376 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This review scopes 376 published patent families filed against a search combining small and distributed wind turbine terms with compute- and sensing-oriented terms such as wind speed, rotor torque, and workload scheduling. The scope sits at the intersection of turbine hardware and the control, forecasting, and grid-integration software layered on top of it. Records span filings from 2015 through the 2026 cutoff, with the most recent two years understated because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months.
Reading the data by family rather than by raw publication count avoids overweighting assignees that file aggressively across jurisdictions or through continuations. The picture that results is one of a technically mature core — wind motor and rotor mechanics — with a thinner but active software shell around forecasting, scheduling and grid response.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 376 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim volume. Because a single record can carry several classes, the composition shares add up to more than 100% of the record total.
Filing activity, 2017-2026
Annual filings rose from 41 in 2017 to a peak of 42 in 2022, then declined toward 16 in 2024 — a -16% move from 2021's 19. 2025 and 2026 show far fewer records, consistent with publication lag rather than a real drop in filing.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
F03D (wind motors) anchors the field at 57.4% of the 376 records. H02J (power supply and grid systems) at 20.2% and G06F (digital data processing) at 10.6% mark the software-adjacent layer, with G01P, G05B, G01W and H02P each covering smaller but distinct control and sensing niches.
Shares are the percentage of the 376 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Small & Distributed Wind Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about small & distributed wind patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this space
Systems and methods for predicting arrival of wind event at aeromechanical apparatus (US10746901B2)
A method for predicting arrival of a wind event at an aeromechanical structure includes sensing wind velocity in an atmospheric volume moving towards the structure to obtain a time series of spatially distributed wind velocity measurements, determining presence of the wind event from at least one measurement, and tracking the event to estimate arrival time. A wind-predicting system uses a lidar and a wind-predicting unit to implement the method, and an aeromechanical apparatus integrates the system.Filed by Ophir Corporation, published 2020-08-18.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20110158806A1 | Wind Turbines and Other Rotating Structures with Instrumented Load-Sensor Bolts or Instrumented Load-Sensor B… | 183 |
| 2 | CN103268366A | 一种适用于分散式风电场的组合风电功率预测方法 | 136 |
| 3 | US8265798B2 | System and method of curtailing energy production within congestive grid operating environments | 89 |
| 4 | US7420289B2 | Method for predicting a power curve for a wind turbine | 76 |
| 5 | US20100148515A1 | Direct Current Brushless Machine and Wind Turbine System | 69 |
| 6 | US20120049533A1 | Buoyant airbarge and spinnaker sail combinations for generating electric power from wind | 60 |
| 7 | US20130166113A1 | LDV System for Measuring Wind at High Altitude | 57 |
| 8 | CN105119320A | 一种分散式风电场风机优化布置系统及方法 | 54 |
| 9 | US20140234103A1 | Method and system for improving wind farm power production efficiency | 54 |
| 10 | US20210055180A1 | Apparatuses and methods for gas flux measurements | 53 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older filings — read these as markers of influence on later work, not as a ranking of current technical importance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once the records are grouped by assignee, technology class and filing office.
Leadership is real but not exclusionary
The leader holds 19 records and fifth place holds 11 — a gap wide enough to matter, but the top 10 combined still account for only a third of all records. A long tail of single- and few-filing entrants holds the remaining two-thirds, which is unusual for a field with a 57.4%-concentrated core IPC class.
Grid integration and data processing are not side claims
Nearly a third of records combine wind-motor mechanics with power-supply/grid claims (H02J) or digital data-processing claims (G06F). For a filer focused purely on rotor or blade mechanics, that software-adjacent share represents territory already being claimed by others working the same base patents.
Activity has eased from its peak, not collapsed
The -16% move from 19 records in 2021 to 16 in 2024 is a real, complete-year comparison. Numbers for 2025 and 2026 look lower still, but that reflects an 18-month publication lag rather than a genuine slowdown, so it should not be read as the field cooling.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to small & distributed wind patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Zhuhai Kaluosi Engineering Consultant Co., Ltd. | WONG CARLOS | 9 |
The strongest co-assignee pairing in this dataset links a Zhuhai-based engineering consultancy with an individual named Carlos Wong across nine records, suggesting a consultancy-inventor filing relationship rather than a corporate joint venture.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked leaders span turbine OEMs, a consumer appliance manufacturer, and specialist instrumentation and consulting firms — a mix that reflects how distributed wind draws on adjacent industries as much as on established turbine makers.
A single leader ahead of a close group
The top assignee holds 19 records against 11 at fifth place — a real lead, but not a dominant one. The gap narrows quickly below that, meaning displacement at the top is plausible rather than structural.
Recent-year activity has gone quiet among established names
Several of the historically active assignees, including established turbine and appliance manufacturers, show no filings in the latest year of this dataset. That is consistent with publication lag rather than exit, but it also means recent momentum data favours newer or smaller filers whose publications have already cleared the pipeline.
Filing is split across three major offices, not one
The United States leads with 106 records, ahead of the EPO at 69 and China at 58, with WIPO/PCT, India and Germany each contributing smaller but non-trivial shares. A freedom-to-operate check confined to a single jurisdiction would miss most of the field.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Siemens AG | 0 | — |
| Gamesa Innovation & Technology, S.L. | 0 | — |
| Agile Wind Power AG | 0 | — |
| Gree Electric Appliances, Inc. of Zhuhai | 0 | — |
| Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC | 0 | — |
| Wobben Properties GmbH | 0 | — |
| OPHIR CORP | 0 | — |
| General Electric Company | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to two practical next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate or new filing strategy.
Check claim scope on the most-cited records
The five highest-cited records in this scope, led by a 183-citation instrumented load-sensor filing, anchor much of the downstream prior art. Any new filing in blade or rotor instrumentation should be checked against these claims specifically, not just against the F03D class as a whole.
Explore citing records in EurekaModel the software-adjacent claim overlap
With H02J and G06F together touching close to a third of records, a filing strategy built purely around mechanical turbine claims risks running into grid-integration or data-processing claims held by a different set of assignees than the mechanical leaders.
Map IPC overlap in EurekaCommon questions about small and distributed wind patents
The ranked leaders include a mix of established turbine OEMs, a large appliance manufacturer, and specialist instrumentation and consulting firms, with the single leading assignee holding 19 of the 376 records in this scope. The top 5 assignees together account for 21.3% of all records, and the top 10 account for 33.5%, which means leadership is real but far from exclusionary. A long tail of single- and few-filing entrants holds the majority of the field, so new entrants are not filing into a locked landscape.
Filing rose from 41 records in 2017 to a peak of 42 in 2022, then eased to 16 in 2024 — a -16% move from 19 records in 2021. That is the most reliable comparison available because 2024 is the most recent year with largely complete publication data. Numbers for 2025 and 2026 appear lower still, but that reflects an roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication rather than an actual collapse in activity, so it should not be read as the technology losing momentum.
Core turbine mechanics under IPC class F03D cover 57.4% of the 376 records in scope, making it by far the densest area. Power supply and grid-integration claims (H02J) follow at 20.2%, and digital data-processing claims (G06F) sit at 10.6%, showing that a meaningful share of activity is in control and integration software rather than pure hardware. Smaller classes covering velocity sensing, control regulation, meteorology and motor control each contribute a further 5-7% of records, often carrying the more specific instrumentation claims.
The United States leads with 106 records, followed by the European Patent Office at 69 and China at 58. WIPO's PCT route accounts for 38 records, with India and Germany each contributing smaller but active shares. A filing or freedom-to-operate strategy limited to one office would miss the majority of relevant prior art, since no single jurisdiction holds more than about a third of the total.
US10746901B2, assigned to Ophir Corporation and published in August 2020, covers a method and system for predicting the arrival of a wind event at a turbine or similar structure using lidar-based, spatially distributed wind velocity measurements tracked over time. It matters because wind-event prediction sits at the intersection of the sensing and control classes that carry a meaningful share of this dataset's records, and lidar-based forecasting methods are a recurring building block in later distributed-wind control and grid-response filings. Anyone filing new claims around predictive turbine control or lidar-based wind sensing should check overlap with this filing specifically.
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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.