Archive
WIND ENERGY. Latest granted patents 2014-2016. Torque transmission elements
Summary
The efficient and smooth operation of a wind farm depends on many factors. Unfavourable weather conditions, as well as poor quality control or untimely maintenance, can significantly reduce the capacity factor of wind turbines. Resistance to strong wind, overheating and vibration of the entire structure and its individual elements is the key to successful power generation. It is also necessary to take into account that the maintenance of wind turbines is a very costly item in terms of both financial and human resources, especially in the case of the operation of offshore wind farms. Improvement of the main elements of wind turbines, including the transmission and gearbox, is a mandatory subject of the development of a large number of research organizations and manufacturers of wind turbine equipment.
The present bulletin reviews patents granted by patent offices around the globe in 2014-2016 in the field related to torque and transmission elements of wind turbines. General research methodology can be found on the Advanced Energy Technologies website. 499 patent documents from 20 patent offices around the world are represented in the bulletin. In total, 290 applicants from 22 countries and 315 subgroups of the International Patent Classification are mentioned.
Key Highlights
The bulletin contains statistical data on the distribution of patent documents by years, by patent offices and by applicant countries, applicant-related data (residents and non-residents), data on the most frequently mentioned International Patent Classification divisions (sections, classes, subclasses, groups, and subgroups). The top three patent offices that granted the largest number of patents were EPO, USPTO (US) and CNIPA (CN).
For each of the patent documents selected for the examination in the present bulletin the characteristics of unified indicators were preliminary defined, they include: technical problems, types of inventive solutions employed, belonging to one or other technological segment. This allows the internal content for each of the indicators in the aggregate array of documents to be visualized, for instance, to define the sequence and proportional correlation of technical problems the inventive solutions disclosed in the texts aim to solve. A list of the top 10 groups consisting of patent documents with identical unified indicators contains ID numbers and applicant names of respective documents; the groups are sorted by the number of patent documents.
A list of the top 10 applicants by the number of patent documents includes Siemens AG (Germany), Vestas Wind Systems A/S (Denmark), General Electric (USA), Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (Japan), Wobben Properties GmbH (Germany), Senvion S.A. (Germany), Aktiebolaget SKF (Sweden), Gamesa Innovation & Technology S.L. (Spain), Alstom Renewable Technologies (France), Alstom Wind S.L.U. (Spain). Data representing the share in the established intellectual property market, distribution of patent by problems, IPC sections, patent offices is provided in the form of tables and diagrams for them.
The prominent documents pages contain the top 10 patents with the highest bibliographical rating, the most extensive coverage of IPC sections, and the shortest patent pending time.
The conclusive part of the bulletin represents the lists of all of the documents reviewed, arranged by the top groups of patent documents with identical unified indicators and by patent offices with the indication of the ID numbers of the granted patents.
Who needs this bulletin?
The proposed patent statistics bulletin allows the existing trends in the intellectual property market of the specified industrial sector to be timely traced, as well as the possibility of acquiring a carefully selected list of patent documents fully corresponding to the specified subject. The bulletin can be useful for inventors, engineers, scientific workers, and business representatives, who are focused on the development of wind energy technologies.
