Vertical-Axis Wind Turbine for Agricultural Irrigation Patent Landscape
Vertical-Axis Wind Turbine for Agricultural Irrigation Patent Landscape in 2026
This is a small, inventor-led niche with 64 patent families in scope; J Hench Consulting Inc holds a commanding position, and the field peaked around 2020 and has since eased. The United States is the dominant filing jurisdiction, and the technology mix is heavily concentrated in wind-motor core classes with adjacent solar, pump, and control branches remaining sparse.
J Hench Consulting Inc leads a fragmented, inventor-driven field
J Hench Consulting Inc ranks first with 19 patent records, more than twice the nearest rival, Nostrum Energy Pte Ltd, at 8. The field is populated largely by independent inventors and small entities rather than established wind-energy corporations.
The top five filers account for 34% of the hundred largest filers’ combined total, indicating a moderate degree of concentration for such a small corpus — a single organization can materially shift the balance. Below the top two, the ranking drops quickly to single-digit counts, confirming a thin challenger tier.
| # | Applicant | Patent records | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | J Hench Consulting Inc | 19 | |
| 2 | Nostrum Energy Pte Ltd | 8 | |
| 3 | Mark Daniel Farb | 5 | |
| 4 | Macario V. Tagum | 3 | |
| 5 | Daniel Maurice Lerner | 3 | |
| 6 | DLZ Corporation | 2 | |
| 7 | ENA MUHENDISLIK DANISMANLIK ENERJI MAKINA & YELKAP… | 2 | |
| 8 | Chitra B. | 2 | |
| 9 | Sudalai S. | 2 | |
| 10 | Axis Energy Group | 2 |
| # | Applicant | Patent records | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | Steven C. Hench | 2 | |
| 12 | National Institute for Aerospace Research Elie Carafoli (INCAS) | 2 | |
| 13 | Guangzhou Daodong New Energy Co Ltd | 2 | |
| 14 | King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals | 2 | |
| 15 | Lee Jia Yuan | 2 | |
| 16 | Rutika Vilas Sanga | 1 | |
| 17 | Saravana L. Kumar | 1 | |
| 18 | Ronald Allan L. Gutierrez | 1 | |
| 19 | Coenraad Hendrik van Wyk | 1 | |
| 20 | Nantong Institute of Technology | 1 |
J Hench Consulting Inc’s dominant position, combined with its status as a consulting vehicle rather than a manufacturing corporation, suggests that core IP may be held by inventors who could license or assign rights rather than commercialize directly — a structural feature that shapes partnership and licensing strategy.
Filing counts for 2024 and 2025 are subject to publication lag and should be treated as provisional minimums; final totals for those years will be higher. Longer-window growth, applicant concentration, and technology-route coverage are therefore more reliable signals than the latest-year bar alone.
Activity peaked in 2020 and has eased; wind-motor classes dominate the technology mix
The annual filing trend and IPC composition together reveal a field that had a clear surge around 2020 but has since moderated, while the technology mix remains anchored in core wind-motor classes with only thin coverage of adjacent enabling technologies.
Annual filing trend
Filings rose from 10 records in 2017, dipped in 2018, recovered to a peak of 11 in 2020, then fell sharply to 3 in 2022 before partially recovering. The 2024 and 2025 figures are subject to publication lag and should be read as minimums, not as a confirmed plateau or rebound.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaTechnology composition
F03D (Wind motors) is the dominant class by a wide margin, reflecting the core turbine focus. F03B (Hydraulic machines) and E02B (Hydraulic and waterway engineering) are the next most represented, consistent with irrigation-system integration. H02S (Photovoltaic/solar), H02P (Motor and generator control), and F04D (Non-positive-displacement pumps) each account for only a handful of records, marking them as adjacent but underdeveloped branches within this corpus.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaHighly cited patent families surfaced by the query
Citation-heavy patent families returned by the query. Use this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents.
Portable and autonomous desalination system
The portable and autonomous desalination system is an autonomous reverse osmosis (RO) desalination system utilizing power from a combination of electricity generation and storage sources that include a photovoltaic (PV) unit, a vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT) unit, and an electricity storage unit. Electric power from PV, VAWT or storage units or a… (excerpt from the patent abstract)
| # | Patent | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Apparatus for harvesting energy and other necessit… | 84 |
| 2 | Check valve turbine | 77 |
| 3 | Cyclosail wind turbine | 53 |
| 4 | Vertical-axis wind turbine with two-phase sails | 53 |
| 5 | Wind turbine mechanism | 48 |
| 6 | Wind turbine safety system and methods | 43 |
| 7 | Check valve turbine | 35 |
| 8 | Portable and autonomous desalination system | 33 |
Ranked by total forward citations. Citation counts favour older and broadly cited patent families, and broad or adjacent patents may appear when they match the search scope. Treat this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents. Some patent titles may be shown in their original, non-English language where an accurate translation could not be guaranteed.
What the competitive structure means for R&D investment decisions
Four structural signals — lifecycle stage, concentration, collaboration, and geography — shape where new entrants and incumbents can find defensible ground in this niche.
Field is in decline phase, easing from a 2020 peak
Annual filings peaked in 2020 and have eased since, placing the field in a decline stage. This does not preclude new entry, but it indicates that the initial wave of core VAWT-irrigation inventions has passed. Entrants should focus on differentiated sub-problems — such as pump integration or smart control — rather than basic turbine geometry, where the prior-art density is highest.
Lifecycle: DeclineOne filer holds a commanding lead; the challenger tier is thin
J Hench Consulting Inc accounts for 19 patent records versus 8 for the second-ranked Nostrum Energy Pte Ltd. The gap between the top two and the rest is substantial. For an entrant, this means freedom-to-operate analysis should focus primarily on the Hench portfolio; for a challenger, acquiring or licensing from one of the small-entity filers ranked third through tenth could be a faster path than organic filing.
Moderate concentrationNo co-applicant activity detected in the corpus
The collaboration evidence is empty: no co-filed patents between distinct organizations appear in this corpus. The field is characterized by solo inventor or single-entity filings. This absence of cross-entity collaboration indicates either early-stage technology development where IP is closely held, or a fragmented landscape where no integrator has yet assembled a consortium around VAWT-based irrigation.
No co-filing detectedUS-centric filing with meaningful PCT and European reach
The United States leads jurisdiction coverage with 41 patent records. WIPO (PCT) and Europe (EPO) follow with 22 and 18 records respectively, and India records 18, reflecting relevance to agricultural markets there. The Philippines (7 records) and Germany (6) round out the secondary tier. China shows only 3 records despite being a major agricultural and wind-energy market, indicating a potential coverage gap for applicants seeking Asian commercial protection.
US-led, India notableGo beyond the landscape: Eureka’s TRIZ Solution agent breaks down an R&D problem and returns patented concept solutions, each with a technical approach and cited patent & literature evidence.
Co-filing pairs, ranked by the number of jointly-filed patent families.
J Hench Consulting Inc leads on core turbine IP; Nostrum Energy pursues hydraulic integration
The two leading filers occupy distinct technical positions: the top filer concentrates on wind-motor design, while the second-ranked entity combines hydraulic-machine and waterway-engineering classes consistent with a more system-level irrigation approach.
J Hench Consulting Inc
The clear leader with 19 patent records, concentrated in F03D 3 and F03D 9 (wind motor design and auxiliary systems). Momentum data shows the entity as a new entrant in the recent period with 6 recent records, suggesting the portfolio was assembled rapidly in a compressed filing window rather than through incremental long-term R&D. This pattern is consistent with a consulting or licensing-oriented IP strategy.
patent records: 19Nostrum Energy Pte Ltd
Nostrum Energy Pte Ltd holds 8 patent records, with a technical focus mapped to hydraulic machines and hydraulic/waterway engineering classes (F03B and E02B), distinguishing it from the pure wind-motor focus of the leader. This positions Nostrum closer to the water-delivery and irrigation infrastructure end of the value chain, a differentiated angle that reduces direct head-to-head overlap with J Hench Consulting Inc.
patent records: 8| Applicant | Recent (3 yrs) | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| Steven C. Hench | 2 | ▲ new entrant |
| J Hench Consulting Inc | 6 | ▲ new entrant |
Solar hybridization, pump control, and desalination integration are under-served adjacent branches
Five IPC classes adjacent to the dominant F03D core each account for fewer than 10 patent records, representing areas where VAWT-irrigation technology intersects with established engineering disciplines that are themselves heavily patented — but not yet well-integrated in this specific application context.
H02S · Photovoltaic / solar power generation
Only 9 patent records touch H02S within this corpus, representing 4% of IPC assignments. A VAWT-solar hybrid system for irrigation — where wind and PV share a power bus to drive pumps — addresses energy intermittency, a known limitation of wind-only designs. Agricultural settings in low-wind periods create a clear technical rationale, and PV integration know-how is widely available from adjacent solar-irrigation literature. An entrant with PV system expertise could file meaningfully differentiated claims here.
Search this in Eureka →H02P · Control of motors & generators
Motor and generator control (H02P) appears in only 7 patent records, a 3% share of IPC assignments in this corpus. Variable-speed control, maximum power point tracking for VAWTs, and adaptive load matching to irrigation pump curves are technically non-trivial sub-problems that remain sparsely covered. An entrant with power-electronics or embedded-control capability could establish priority in control-system claims without competing directly on turbine mechanical design, where prior-art density is highest.
Search this in Eureka →How leading filers differ across wind-motor, hydraulic, and control technology routes
Strength of each leader across the main technology routes.
| Player | F03D 3 · Wind motors (wind turbines) | F03D 9 · Wind motors (wind turbines) | F03B 13 · Hydraulic machines & engines | F03B 17 · Hydraulic machines & engines | E02B 9 · Hydraulic & waterway engineering |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Steven C. Hench | Strong · 13 | Strong · 13 | Absent | Absent | Absent |
| Stefano Leoci | Strong · 10 | Strong · 10 | Absent | Absent | Absent |
| Piero Petrosillo | Strong · 9 | Strong · 9 | Absent | Absent | Absent |
| Viktor Galstyan | Strong · 9 | Strong · 7 | Absent | Absent | Absent |
| Tigran Gichunts | Strong · 9 | Strong · 7 | Absent | Absent | Absent |
| J Hench Consulting Inc | Strong · 7 | Strong · 7 | Absent | Absent | Absent |
Frequently asked questions
There are 64 patent families in scope for this topic globally. The corpus is small relative to broader wind-turbine or irrigation technology spaces, reflecting the niche intersection of VAWT design with agricultural water delivery.
J Hench Consulting Inc holds the most patent records at 19, more than double the second-ranked filer, Nostrum Energy Pte Ltd, at 8. The portfolio was assembled as a new entrant in the recent filing period.
The United States leads with 41 patent records, followed by WIPO (PCT) at 22, Europe (EPO) at 18, and India at 18. The Philippines shows 7 records, reflecting inventor activity in that market. China has only 3 records despite being a major agricultural and wind-energy market.
The field is in a decline stage. Annual filings peaked at 11 records in 2020 and have eased since. The 2024 and 2025 data are subject to publication lag and should be treated as provisional minimums.
No co-applicant activity has been detected in this corpus. All filings appear to be single-entity or individual-inventor filings, which is consistent with the early-stage, inventor-driven character of this niche.
The most-cited work in the corpus includes titles such as ‘Apparatus for harvesting energy and other necessities’ (84 citations), ‘Check valve turbine’ (77 citations), ‘Cyclosail wind turbine’ (53 citations), ‘Vertical-axis wind turbine with two-phase sails’ (53 citations), and ‘Wind turbine mechanism’ (48 citations), indicating that fundamental VAWT mechanical design and energy-harvesting concepts anchor the citation network.
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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.
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