US 10871329

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent.

Let me run additional targeted searches for litigation and any Federal Circuit activity.

One more check for any post-grant proceedings or district court cases.

US 10,871,329 B2 — "Wind guiding vane apparatus"

Caveat up front: I searched for the specific number 10871329 / 10,871,329. I found solid patent-document sources (Google Patents, Justia) but no CAFC 2026 docket, no district court case, and no PTAB/IPR or reexamination record referencing this patent number. Two search hits containing the digit string "10871329" are unrelated identifiers in other numbering systems (an FDA MAUDE report key and an NHTSA complaint ID) and must not be conflated with the patent. My inability to find litigation/appeal activity means only that I did not find it — not that it does not exist.

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Bibliographic data (per Google Patents)

Prosecution events of note: non-final action 2019-09-18; final rejection 2020-03-25; issue-fee payment verified 2020-11-20; patent granted 2020-12-22.

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10871329/en ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/10871329

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Abstract (verbatim)

"The present invention provides wind guiding vane apparatus for mitigating a detrimental influence of cross winds flowing in the vicinity of an air-cooled condenser (ACC) and through one or more fans, positioned in lateral direction of the ACC, to which ambient air is directed and discharged to the atmosphere after cooling condenser tubes of the ACC, comprising one or more stationary wind guiding vanes positioned along at least a portion of an air flow streamline and below a plurality of condenser tubes of the ACC, wherein said one or more wind guiding vanes are configured to redirect air flow during windy conditions towards a portion of said plurality of condenser tubes and at least one of the fans at such an angle that significantly deviates from perpendicular, fairly horizontal inflow. The one or more wind guiding vanes are also suitable to maintain a nominal flow rate of air during quiescent wind conditions."

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Independent claims — plain language

Claim 1 (apparatus). A wind-guiding apparatus for reducing harm from cross winds around a horizontal ACC whose condenser tubes are cooled by ambient air that is then discharged to atmosphere. It has two required parts:

• (a) a plurality of support structures that support the horizontal ACC, extending both below and above the ground surface; and
• (b) one or more stationary (immobilized) wind guiding vanes located below the condenser tubes, each vane connected to and held fixed by those support structures.

The support structures must place each vane at a specific linear and angular position relative to the fan(s) such that each vane is simultaneously:

1. on — without disturbing — the fan-derived airflow streamline feeding the corresponding fan during no-wind conditions while the fans run; and
2. coincident with at least a portion of the wind-derived airflow streamline that exists in windy conditions,

so that the vanes redirect the windy airflow toward part of the tube bundle and at least one fan at an angle deviating from perpendicular, fairly-horizontal inflow.

Claim 1 is then narrowed by three structural requirements added during prosecution:

• the vanes are "exactly two" vertically spaced, elongated vanes, fixed in place below the same longitudinal end of the horizontal ACC;
• the two vanes are inclined relative to the ground, with the downstream edge higher than the upstream edge, pointing toward the second lateral end and away from the first lateral end of the ACC; and
• both vanes sit directly below the same first upstream fan.

Plainly: two fixed, upwardly-tilted baffles mounted under the leading (windward) fan of the ACC, arranged so they're invisible to the airflow on calm days but catch and re-angle crosswind air up into the tube bundles and fans.

Claim 8 (method). The same subject matter recited as a method — "providing" the support structures, "providing" the stationary vanes, with the identical positioning logic (on the fan-derived streamline without disturbing it; coincident with the wind-derived streamline), the same "exactly two vanes below a same longitudinal end" limitation, the same upward inclination toward the second lateral end, and both vanes directly below the same first upstream fan.

Claim 9 (apparatus). Substantially a restatement of claim 1 but with the word "horizontal" omitted from the ACC/tube recitations — i.e., a broader-format apparatus claim covering an ACC generally, while retaining all of claim 1's narrowed structural limitations (exactly two spaced elongated vanes at one longitudinal end; inclined with downstream edge higher and pointing toward the second lateral end; both directly below the same first upstream fan). In substance it appears co-extensive with claim 1 except for the horizontal-ACC qualifier, and it is presumably the fallback if the "horizontal" limitation were construed narrowly.

Dependent claims. Claim 2 adds a second pair of vertically spaced, elongated vanes at the same longitudinal end but laterally spaced from the first pair, inclined in the opposite direction (downstream edge pointing toward the first lateral end) to handle a wind shift; those added vanes must also satisfy the dual-streamline positioning test. Claim 3 recites laterally spaced columns to which vane edges connect. Claim 4 recites braces running from a column's bottom region to an upper region of a longitudinally spaced intermediate column. Claim 5 requires each vane to have the same slope as the fan-derived streamline it sits on (at a tangent region). Claims 6 and 7 specify planar vanes and curved vanes, respectively — the curved variant being stacked with progressively increasing projected horizontal dimension and distance to the ACC bottom plane from uppermost to lowermost vane.

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Context from the specification (useful for claim interpretation)

• The claims' "stationary/immobilized" language is a deliberate distinction over the assignee's own earlier patents US 9,587,842, 9,651,269 and 9,689,630, which the specification describes as disclosing vanes "mounted for rotation about a vertical axis, so that their pivot angle or height is changeable in response to sensor readings," and criticizes as unduly costly because of the displacement controls.
• "Windy conditions" is defined as wind speed > 5 m/s, e.g. 5–10 m/s; the specification says benefit also accrues at ~3 m/s.
• Design was done via CFD (Navier–Stokes) with an SST turbulence model on a 10-million-element mesh, using wind data measured at the Don Campbell geothermal power plant, Nevada, USA, verified by smoke tests and velocity measurements. The analyzed bay was 60 ft long × 26 ft wide with three finned-tube bundles and three 16-ft fans.
• Prior art cited of record includes US 8,302,670 B2 (SPX Cooling Technologies), US 2012/0118513 A1 / US 8,997,828 B2 (Galebreaker, "Shield system"), US 2015/0034276 A1 and US 2015/0096736 A1 (Ormat), CN 1858536 A, CN 202074846 U, CN 105928378 A and CN 205156661 U. The examiner considered PCT ISR (2019-08-26) and PCT Written Opinion (2019-08-26) in PCT/IB2019/052171.

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Bottom line

US 10,871,329 is a granted, currently-active Ormat Technologies patent (Fiterman & Mendler) covering two fixed, upwardly-inclined wind-guiding vanes mounted beneath the first upstream fan at one longitudinal end of a horizontal air-cooled condenser, positioned so they lie along the fan-induced streamlines on calm days but intercept and re-direct crosswind flows during windy periods. I found no Federal Circuit 2026 docket, district court action, or PTAB proceeding for this patent, and I flag that as a search limitation rather than a confirmed negative. If you need a definitive litigation check, I'd recommend querying the CAFC docket system and PACER/PTAB directly by patent number rather than relying on open web indexing.

I'll search several litigation-focused sources for US patent 10871329.

The initial searches returned irrelevant results. Let me try more targeted litigation databases.

Litigation Search Report — U.S. Patent No. 10,871,329

Patent under review: US 10,871,329 B2 ("Wind guiding vane apparatus"), inventors Anton Fiterman and Dvir Mendler, assignee Ormat Technologies, Inc., filed March 19, 2018, granted December 22, 2020. Claims 1–9 (apparatus and method claims directed to stationary wind guiding vanes positioned below ACC condenser tubes).

Bottom line: No litigation involving US 10,871,329 was found.

I searched for the specific patent number (10871329 / 10,871,329) across the litigation-oriented sources available to me — the Unified Patents litigation/PTAB portals (portal.unifiedpatents.com), RPX Insight (insight.rpxcorp.com), CourtListener/RECAP, Docket Alarm, and general CAFC/PACER-derived results. No district court case, ITC action, CAFC appeal, or PTAB (IPR/PGR/CBM) proceeding naming US 10,871,329 as the patent-in-suit was located.

Per your instruction, I excluded results for similar but different numbers (e.g., I did not return the PTAB art-unit reference to "10871329" appearing in a mycophenolate PubMed citation, nor the unrelated trademark/application references).

What the searches did surface (so you can distinguish it)

To be transparent about near-misses that a keyword search can confuse with this patent:

1. Ormat Technologies, Inc. v. Fervo Energy / related declaratory-judgment action — This is a different patent. The dispute concerns U.S. Patent No. 7,320,221 ("Method and apparatus for using geothermal energy for the production of power"), not the '329 patent. Per the complaint excerpt on RPX Insight (Southern District of Texas, Houston Division; Ormat's December 2023 cease-and-desist correspondence and late-December 2023 accusations regarding the '221 patent), the controversy was over geothermal power-plant technology and turbine-supplier choice. The '329 patent is not named.

2. Ormat's own prior, related patents — U.S. Pat. Nos. 9,587,842; 9,651,269; 9,689,630; and 10,247,492 (Bronicki et al., "Device and method for minimizing the effect of ambient conditions on the operation of a heat exchanger"), which the '329 specification cites and distinguishes (they use rotating/adjustable deflectors). These are cited as prior art/background in the '329 patent itself, not asserted in any located '329-specific suit.

3. Commercial activity, not litigation — Ormat has publicly announced commercial implementation of its "Wind Guiding Vanes" (WGV) technology at the Don A. Campbell geothermal plant (Nevada) and offers it to clients (Ormat news page; World Geothermal Congress 2020 paper). This is commercialization of the patented subject matter, not enforcement.

Caveats and confidence

• Confidence: moderate-to-high that no litigation has been filed asserting the '329 patent, based on the sources reachable in this session. The patent issued in December 2020 and thus has been enforceable for roughly five years; the absence of hits across Unified's portal, RPX Insight, and RECAP is meaningful.
• I cannot guarantee a complete negative. My searches are limited by tool reach; sealed filings, recently filed complaints not yet indexed, foreign proceedings (the family includes EP 3769021, CA 3092317, MX 2020008765, NZ 767158, RU 2788790, and WO 2019180581), and any state-court or arbitration matters would not necessarily appear. If you need a docket-level verification, the authoritative check would be a PACER/Justia Dockets search on "10,871,329" plus a Google Patents "Litigation" tab (which was not separately confirmed here) and the Unified Patents portal directly.
• Per your strict rule: I interpreted the number literally as 10,871,329 and did not substitute any similar identifier.

If you'd like, I can attempt a follow-up pass targeting the international family members (EP 3769021 opposition/EU enforcement, or foreign national-phase litigation) or run a broader assignee-based search ("Ormat Technologies" as plaintiff, 2021–2026).

I'll verify the structured block's "no proceedings" default against live sources before writing the report.

Let me run a couple more targeted checks to firm up the negative.

One more check — the related Ormat family patents, which are the ones litigants typically attack first, plus any reexam on the '329.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings are on file against US 10,871,329 — 0 active, 0 with claims invalidated, 0 with claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denials — which means the patent reaches you entirely un-narrowed and untested at the PTAB: all nine claims (1–9) stand exactly as granted on 2020-12-22, so there is no prior Final Written Decision, no cancellation certificate, and no petitioner estoppel to hand you a free kill — but equally no § 315(b) time bar and no § 325(d) adverse PTAB record, leaving you the first mover with a clean slate (subject to the 2025-era discretionary-denial regime discussed below).

Sources: the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO Open Data Portal ingest) returned no AIA trial records, and live searches of the Unified Patents portal, PTAB E2E/PTAB Center material, and general IPR reporting surfaced no petition, institution decision, or FWD naming this patent.

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Proceedings

None. I did not locate any Inter Partes Review, Post-Grant Review, or Covered Business Method Review naming US 10,871,329 as the challenged patent. Per your instruction, I am not inventing proceeding numbers to fill the template, and I am not substituting any similar identifier (e.g., the "10871329" hits that resolve to unrelated art units or applications).

Because there is no FWD, there are no judge panels, petition grounds, institution decisions, claim-level dispositions, settlements, or Federal Circuit appeals to report. The absence is the finding.

Diligence log — what I checked and what I ruled out

Adjacent post-grant event worth flagging (not a PTAB proceeding)

EP 3,769,021 B1 (the European family member) — opposition period closed with no opposition. The EPO register records the grant on 2024-12-04 and then a "No opposition filed" date of 2025-09-05, after the ordinary 9-month opposition period. Ormat also registered a UPC opt-out (case number APP_54412/2024, dated 2024-10-02), which keeps the granted European patent out of the Unified Patent Court. Caveat: the register also shows the GB designation lapsed for non-payment of a renewal fee (payment/GBPC entries around 2025-03-18 to 2025-03-31).

Why a US defendant cares: this is the closest thing to third-party validity testing this family has received anywhere, and it produced nothing — no EPO opponent and no UPC action. That is a weak-but-real signal that competitors who do know this technology space have not chosen to attack it. Treat it as context, not as a merits finding: an EPO opposition tests different art under different law against the EPO claim set, and no opposition means only that no one bothered, not that the claims are strong.

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Strategic summary

Claim status. All of claims 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 are UNTESTED and intact. Nothing is CANCELED. Nothing has been SUSTAINED by a tribunal either — that distinction matters, because "untested" gives you no presumption-of-validity discount and gives Ormat no PTAB win to point at. If a demand letter cites claim 1, the "exactly two vertically spaced and elongated wind guiding vanes … both positioned directly below a same first upstream fan" limitation is the pinch point you are working against; it is a narrow, negative-style limitation that a well-funded IPR could plausibly attack on § 103, but it is also the reason the claim survived prosecution. Notably, the public record shows a final rejection mailed 2020-03-25, followed by a "docketed — ready for examination" entry on 2020-07-02 and grant on 2020-12-22. Something moved after that final rejection. I did not retrieve the file history and cannot tell you which limitation was added or what art was overcome — do not assume.

Estoppel landscape. There is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel against anyone, because no IPR or PGR ever reached a final written decision. Every ground that exists is available to you: you are not limited to art someone else already raised, and you are not inheriting a failed petition's theory. Two counterweights: (i) the eleven references already of record on the '329 face — including US 8,302,670 (SPX, "Air guide for air cooled condenser"), US 2012/0118513 / US 8,997,828 (Galebreaker "Shield system"), CN 1858536 A, CN 202074846 U, and Ormat's own US 2015/0034276, US 2015/0096736, US 9,587,842, US 9,689,630 — are the candidates for a § 325(d) discretionary denial if you simply re-serve them; new art and a new technical theory are your safest path; and (ii) the 2025 procedural environment is hostile to institution generally. The Unified Patents 2025 year-in-review reports 607 procedural denials in 2025 (a record) and a full-year petition decline of ~5.9%, driven by Director-level control of institution decisions and, for older patents, a "settled expectations" doctrine. A 2018-filed, 2020-granted patent is squarely in the age band where that doctrine is being applied — e.g., the Director's discretionary denials in Dabico Airport Solutions Inc. v. AXA Power ApS, IPR2025-00408 (Paper 21, 2025-06-18), invoking 7- and 14-year-old patents' settled expectations. Build the petition as if § 314(a) is going to be the fight, not just the merits.

Pattern signals. No serial-petitioner pattern, no defensive aggregator (no Unified Patents, RPX, or similar) in the chain, and no patent-owner appeal history — because there is no PTAB history at all. On top of the litigation report's finding of no district court suit, the picture is a commercially exploited but never-asserted, never-challenged patent. Ormat has publicly announced the Wind Guiding Vanes system as a commercial offering at the Don A. Campbell geothermal plant in Nevada (Ormat news release; Meshulam, Mendler & Fiterman, Mitigation of Wind Effect on Air Cooled Condenser Performance, World Geothermal Congress 2020) claiming up to ~15% net generation recovery under wind, and 4th-year maintenance fees were paid on 2024-06-05. So this is a practicing-entity patent Ormat is monetizing through products, not through lawsuits — which cuts both ways: it is more likely to be asserted against a direct competitor selling competing ACC wind-mitigation hardware, and it is also a patent whose owner has every incentive to keep it alive. Adjusted expiration per Google's (admittedly assumption-based) legal status: 2038-06-07.

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Recommended next steps

1. There is no FWD to link to. I am deliberately not citing a PTAB decision or a claim-cancellation certificate, because none exists for this patent. Do not let anyone on your team argue from a supposed prior IPR — for US 10,871,329 there is none.
2. Pull the file history before you budget a petition. Application 15/925,177 is at USPTO PatentCenter: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/. You need the amendment filed between the 2020-03-25 final rejection and the 2020-12-22 grant, the examiner's reasons for allowance, and the art of record. The "exactly two" limitation in claim 1 reads like a prosecution-driven narrowing, and that is where the § 112 and § 103 arguments will live.
3. Check ex parte reexamination and any reissue under the same family. My search did not surface one, but I cannot exclude an anonymously filed ex parte reexam — it would show as a "90/" proceeding number in PatentCenter. If one is pending, it changes both your timing and your art-selection calculus.
4. Timestamp your § 315(b) clock. No complaint has been located against this patent; if one is ever served on you, the IPR bar runs one year from service. You currently have unlimited runway — use it to commission a proper invalidity search rather than to rush a § 325(d)-vulnerable petition.
5. Investigate the pre-2017-03-19 Don A. Campbell activity — carefully and skeptically. The WGC 2020 paper and the Ormat news release describe an experimental WGV installation at Don A. Campbell with fan-flow and smoke testing before full-scale rollout. Their 2020 publication dates are after the 2018-03-19 filing and therefore cannot be § 102(a)(1) art; likewise, post-filing sales and uses are irrelevant. The only version of this theory that has legs is a pre-2017-03-19 non-experimental public use or offer for sale at Don A. Campbell — outside the § 102(b)(1) grace period — and the experimental-use doctrine would likely defeat it. This is a long shot, unverified, and I am flagging it as an evidentiary question to price out, not as a ground to plead.
6. If you do file, treat § 314(a) as the battlefield. Given the 2025 denial regime and this patent's age, front-load your petition with a discretionary-denial defense: quantify the concrete harm of proceeding (your invalidity case in any parallel forum, the narrow claim scope, the absence of any prior PTAB investment) and avoid art already of record, which invites § 325(d) denial on top of § 314(a).

I'll reconstruct the assignment chain for US 10,871,329, starting with the USPTO Assignment Center and cross-referencing the legal events already captured.

The generic searches didn't surface the assignment record. Let me target the specific sources and check Ormat's corporate status.

Let me verify the assignment record directly and identify the correspondent of record.

I've hit my tool-call budget. Based on the sources retrieved (Google Patents legal events, the USPTO assignment data surfaced through Google Patents, Justia, PatentGuru/GoodIP/ipqwery assignee profiles, Ormat's own corporate and technical publications, and Ormat's SEC Form 10-K filings), here is the ownership-chain reconstruction.

Caveat on sourcing: The USPTO Assignment Center's per-record detail page (which displays the recorded correspondent attorney and registered address) was not directly retrievable in this session. The reel/frame and conveyance data below come from the assignment record as surfaced in the patent's Google Patents "Legal Events"/reassignments block, which reproduces the USPTO Assignment Search record. I could not independently confirm the correspondent name as recorded on REEL/FRAME 046295/0885; I flag that explicitly rather than guess.

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Inventors

Pattern check: No unusual pattern. There is no evidence of inventors departing the original assignee near filing, no inventor-held (unassigned) residual interest, and no subsequent inventor-to-third-party conveyances. Both inventors signed the assignment within ~3 weeks of the 2018-03-19 filing date (signing dates 2018-04-09 to 2018-04-11), which is the normal, prompt employment-assignment cadence — the opposite of a fire-sale tell.

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Original assignee

Ormat Technologies, Inc. — the entity named on the issued patent (original and current assignee; Google Patents lists no intervening owner).

• Legal form / domicile: Delaware corporation, headquartered in Reno, Nevada (the assignment record styles the assignee's address as "Nevada"). Note the discrepancy: Nevada is the address/principal place of business, while the state of incorporation is Delaware — not an inconsistency, just the two different facts.
• Primary line of business: Geothermal and recovered-energy power generation plus power-plant equipment design/manufacture and sale (subsidiaries Ormat Systems Ltd., Ormat International Inc., Ormat Nevada Inc.), and electricity sales via PPAs. Publicly traded (NYSE: ORA; also TASE). Market cap cited around $4.8B in the ipqwery profile.
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Yes — affirmatively documented. Ormat's own news release ("Wind Guiding Vanes Patent") states the WGV solution was "release[d] for commercial implementation," recovered ~2,000 MWh/year of generation at the Don A. Campbell geothermal complex, and is "now offer[ed] … to its worldwide clients." The WGC 2020 paper reports measured airflow recovery (e.g., ~14% complete-bay recovery at 7 m/s crosswind) and full-scale implementation at Don A. Campbell. This is a shipped commercial product practicing the patented subject matter, not a paper patent.
• Current status: Operating, solvent, active. 4th-year maintenance fee paid 2024-06-05 as a large entity (Legal Events, code MAFP); the patent is listed "Active" with an adjusted expiration of 2038-06-07. No bankruptcy, receivership, or dissolution is indicated anywhere in the record.

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Assignment timeline

2018-04-09 → 2018-04-11 (executed) / recorded 2018-07-09 — Reel 046295 / Frame 0885

• Conveyance: Assignment (original — "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST")
• Assignor: Anton Fiterman; Dvir Mendler (joint inventors)
• Assignee: Ormat Technologies, Inc. (Nevada)
• Correspondent: Not confirmable from the sources retrieved. The USPTO record's correspondent field was not exposed in the retrievable data. For context only (not a substitute for the recorded correspondent): the prosecution agency of record for US 10,871,329 B2 is Oblon, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt, L.L.P. (per PatentGuru's listing), and the EP family counterpart lists Studio Torta S.p.A. Do not treat these as the assignment-record correspondent — that field must be read off REEL/FRAME 046295/0885 in Assignment Center.
• Context: Routine employment/original acquisition — inventors assign to their employer; it is the founding conveyance of the chain, not a subsequent transfer.

No further assignments are recorded. Beyond REEL/FRAME 046295/0885, the complete set of post-filing legal events is non-assignment in nature: the 2018-03-19 entity-status/fee-payment entry (FEPP, large entity), standard prosecution papers (non-final action 2019-09-18; final rejection 2020-03-25; issue-fee payment verified 2020-11-20; patent granted 2020-12-22), and the 2024-06-05 maintenance-fee payment (MAFP). There is no security agreement, merger, change-of-name, license, release, or correction recorded against this patent, and no post-issuance conveyance of any kind. The chain therefore stops at the original assignee.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10871329
    2018 : Inventors execute assignment to Ormat
         : Recorded reel 046295 frame 0885
         : Application filed 2018-03-19
    2020 : Patent issued to Ormat Technologies Inc
    2024 : Maintenance fee paid by large entity

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

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Verdict

Insufficient data (chain consists of only the original assignment — the enumerated condition for this verdict).

Justification: The entire recorded chain is a single conveyance — inventors Anton Fiterman and Dvir Mendler to Ormat Technologies, Inc. per REEL/FRAME 046295/0885, executed 2018-04-09/11 and recorded 2018-07-09 — with no post-issuance assignment of any type and no litigation or post-grant proceeding found. Because the instruction defines "Insufficient data" as the verdict where there are no records or only the original assignment, that is the technically correct label even though every affirmative indicator points the other way: the patent is held by a large, publicly traded operating company (NYSE: ORA) that ships a product practicing the claims (the WGV system at Don A. Campbell) and has paid large-entity maintenance fees through 2024. All eight NPE signals are not present; there is no shell entity, no asserter, no cascading transfer, no privateering, and no defensive-aggregator termination. Net: a clean, unsold, operating-company asset with zero NPE footprint.

Verify at: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search application 15/925,177 or patent 10,871,329) / https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html — and open REEL/FRAME 046295/0885 to read the correspondent field, which is the one datum I could not independently confirm here.

I'll research the cited prior art references for US 10,871,329 and assess anticipation potential.

Let me get details on the two remaining Chinese references and confirm the citation set.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 10,871,329 B2 ("Wind guiding vane apparatus")

1. Method and source note

I was asked to search the USPTO database for the specific number 10,871,329. The authoritative bibliographic record for this patent is the USPTO file, which is mirrored (with the full "Patent Citations" list) on Google Patents at https://patents.google.com/patent/US10871329/en and on Justia at https://patents.justia.com/patent/10871329. I treated the Google Patents citation list as the USPTO of-record citation set. Per the strict rule I interpreted the number literally as 10,871,329 and did not substitute or auto-correct any ID. No results for similar numbers were used.

The '329 patent's face lists 11 patent citations (the ones marked "*" were cited by the examiner). All 11 have priority/publication dates well before the '329 priority date of 2018-03-19, so each is presumptively available as prior art under §102(a)(1)/(a)(2) if its disclosure bears on the claims. Two non-patent citations (the PCT ISR and Written Opinion dated 2019-08-26 in PCT/IB2019/052171) are post-filing and are not §102 art.

Critically, the independent claims 1, 8 and 9 were narrowed during prosecution (final rejection 2020-03-25, then allowance) to require, in substance: (i) exactly two vertically spaced, elongated vanes; (ii) fixed below the same longitudinal end of the ACC; (iii) inclined so the downstream edge is higher and points toward the second lateral end; (iv) both directly below the same first upstream fan; and (v) the dual-streamline positioning test (on, without disturbing, the fan-derived streamline in no-wind; coincident with at least a portion of the wind-derived streamline in windy conditions). Anticipation under §102 requires every one of these in a single reference. My assessment is that none of the 11 references discloses all of them, so I find no §102 anticipation of claims 1, 8 or 9 as issued. Several references are, however, strong §103 material and are directly relevant to the dependent claims. Details below.

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2. Verdict at a glance

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3. Reference-by-reference §102 analysis

3.1 CN1858536A — 江苏双良空调设备股份有限公司 (Jiangsu Shuangliang)

• Full citation: CN 1858536 A; App. CN 200610040699.X; "加装进风导流装置的电站直接空冷凝汽器" ("Power station direct air-cooling condenser fitted with air-inlet guide/flow device"). Granted as CN 100451521 C (2009-01-14); patent terminated 2025-05-23.
• Dates: filed/priority 2006-05-26; published 2006-11-08. (Source: https://patent.wf.pub/article:CN200610040699.X)
• Disclosure: An ACC comprising heat-exchange tube bundles, a windbreak wall (挡风墙), a fan group (风机群), a steel platform and columns. The distinguishing feature is an inlet guide device (进风导流装置) mounted vertically downward on the periphery of the steel platform below the windbreak wall. In dependent claim 2 the device is a set of blades (叶片) hinged on connecting rods and joined by a control rod, blade angle "inclined"; claim 3 says the control rod connects to a manual or automatic adjustment mechanism; claim 4 says the blades are planar or arc-shaped.
• §102 assessment: This is the classic "inlet guide vane below an ACC" concept and is the examiner's primary citation. But it does not anticipate claims 1/8/9: (a) the blades are hinged/adjustable ("手动或自动调节机构"), whereas the '329 claims require vanes that are stationary/immobilized; (b) the device sits around the platform periphery, not "directly below the same first upstream fan"; (c) it is not "exactly two vertically spaced elongated vanes"; (d) there is no disclosure of the dual-streamline (fan-derived vs. wind-derived) positioning test.
• Where it does bear: relevant to claim 6 (planar vanes — "叶片是平面的") and, generically, claim 3 (columns = 立柱).

3.2 US 8,302,670 B2 — SPX Cooling Technologies, Inc.

• Full citation: US 8,302,670 B2; "Air guide for air cooled condenser"; inventors Yang, Brenneke, Mockry; app. 11/966,777; priority US 2007-12-28. (EP counterpart EP 2235300 B1.)
• Dates: priority 2007-12-28; granted 2012-11-06.
• Disclosure: An ACC tower with a framework supporting a fan deck and fan shrouds, condenser coils above the fan deck, and substantially non-porous side walls. The inventive feature is a downwardly and outwardly projecting, non-porous elongated "upper air guide" (awning/skirt) extending from the side wall downward to about fan-deck level, to smooth the inlet turn. (Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8302670)
• §102 assessment: No anticipation. The guide is a single large awning affixed at the upper side wall (above the fan deck), not two vanes below the condenser tubes and directly below a fan; it is not the claimed inclined two-vane assembly, and it is not positioned on a fan-derived streamline coincident with a wind-derived streamline. Relevant at most as background for claim 3 (support framework).

3.3 US 2012/0118513 A1 and US 8,997,828 B2 — Simon Melhuish et al. / Galebreaker Group Ltd.

• Full citations: US 2012/0118513 A1 ("Shield system", pub. 2012-05-17, priority GB 0910724, 2009-06-22) and its granted counterpart US 8,997,828 B2 (Galebreaker Group Ltd; filed 2010-06-11; granted 2015-04-07).
• Dates: priority 2009-06-22; publications 2012-05-17 / 2015-04-07.
• Disclosure: A shield system for an air-cooler structure using flexible sheets (mesh or solid) fixed between curved or angled elongate fixing members fitted either side of a fan's air path, so that the sheet "guides external wind along the air path towards the fan." Two pairs of fixing members can form a conduit feeding the fan, "which can boost performance of the fan." The sheet position can be adjusted by a motor/controller responsive to weather sensors. Source: http://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/3b/7f/f9/e9e5dd8a7f8eef/US8997828.pdf ; https://www.patents-review.com/a/20120118513-shield-system.html
• §102 assessment: Closest reference on the core concept, but still not anticipatory. Galebreaker expressly teaches redirecting external wind along a fan air path toward the fan — the functional heart of the '329 claims — and uses curved members. However: (a) the wind-redirecting element is a flexible sheet, not a rigid "wind guiding vane"; (b) the system is actively adjustable (motor + weather-monitor controller), whereas the '329 claims recite stationary/immobilized vanes; (c) no disclosure of exactly two vertically spaced elongated vanes below the same longitudinal end, inclined with the downstream edge higher and pointing to the second lateral end, both directly below the same first upstream fan; (d) no dual-streamline (fan-derived + wind-derived) positioning disclosure.
• Where it does bear: the most material §103 reference against independent claims 1/8/9, and relevant to claim 7 (curved vanes — Galebreaker's "curved members") and claim 5 (conforming to the air path — "curved or angled in a direction similar to that of the air path"). A §103 combination of Galebreaker + CN1858536 (fixed vs. adjustable; hood/awning geometry) is the most plausible attack path.

3.4 CN 202074846 U — 哈尔滨工业大学（威海）(Harbin Institute of Technology, Weihai)

• Full citation: CN 202074846 U; "Wind-proof flow guide device for direct air cooling island of power plant"; utility model; priority/app. 2011-05-06.
• Dates: filed 2011-05-06; published 2011-12-14.
• Disclosure: A wind-proof, flow-guiding device for the direct air-cooling island of a power plant. (Public English abstract title only; I could not retrieve full claim text in this session — treat description as limited.)
• §102 assessment: On the available disclosure, no anticipation — its title/abstract indicate a flow-guiding/wind-shielding device for the air-cooling island generally, without the '329 claim's specific two-vane, single-fan, dual-streamline structure. Best characterized as cumulative art on the general concept. I flag that I could not read the full Chinese claim set here, so this conclusion is low-confidence and should be re-verified against the CNIPA document.

3.5 US 2015/0034276 A1; US 2015/0096736 A1; US 9,587,842 B2; US 9,689,630 B2 (and US 9,651,269 B2) — Ormat Technologies, Inc. (Bronicki & Fisher)

• Full citations / dates:
  • US 2015/0034276 A1 — "Device and method for minimizing the effect of ambient conditions on the operation of a heat exchanger"; app. 14/322,458; priority 2012-07-02; pub. 2015-02-05.
  • US 2015/0096736 A1 — same title; app. 14/323,588; priority 2012-07-02; pub. 2015-04-09.
  • US 9,587,842 B2 — granted 2017-03-07.
  • US 9,689,630 B2 — granted 2017-06-27 (wind deflectors mounted on the ground separately from the finned-tube arrays, adjacent a longer side).
  • Related: US 9,651,269 B2 — named in the '329 specification as incorporated by reference but not shown in the Google citation list; same Ormat family.
• Disclosure: One or more wind deflectors installed along the long side(s) of the finned-tube arrays, pivotally mounted so their deflection angle β can be changed (0°–~180°) by actuators (electric/hydraulic/pneumatic) under a controller receiving temperature/wind/pressure sensor readings. The deflectors redirect below-array wind to a more vertical direction. (Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20150034276 ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/[9689630](/patent/9689630))
• §102 assessment: No anticipation. These are the assignee's own earlier, adjustable deflector systems, and the '329 specification expressly distinguishes them: they are "mounted for rotation…so that their pivot angle or height is changeable in response to sensor readings," which the '329 patent criticizes as adding cost. The '329 claims require stationary/immobilized vanes. Also, the Ormat deflectors are on the long sides of the arrays (in '630, ground-mounted separately), not two vertically spaced vanes directly below the first upstream fan. Relevant to claim 3 (support/column structures) and as admitted background.

3.6 CN 205156661 U — 沈建昆 (Shen Jiankun)

• Full citation: CN 205156661 U; "空冷风机横向风导流装置" ("Air-cooling-fan crosswind guiding device"); priority 2015-11-05.
• Dates: filed 2015-11-05; published 2016-04-13.
• Disclosure: A guide hood/shroud (导流罩) associated with an air-cooling fan, formed as one piece or from at least two (in one claim, at least eight) trapezoidal guide plates, mounted on a tubular ring (round or polygonal) carried by a support frame with at least three struts engaging the ring. Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/CN205156661U
• §102 assessment: No anticipation. This is a shroud/hood around the fan intake built from multiple trapezoidal plates on a ring — structurally remote from "exactly two vertically spaced and elongated wind guiding vanes" inclined below the condenser tubes and the dual-streamline positioning. Cumulative art on the general "guide the crosswind at the fan" idea; possible §103 filler, not anticipatory.

3.7 CN 105928378 A — 国网山西省电力公司电力科学研究院 (State Grid Shanxi EPRI)

• Full citation: CN 105928378 A; "带有防横风导流装置的直接空冷机组空冷单元" ("Air-cooling unit of a direct air-cooling machine set provided with an anti-crosswind flow-guiding device"); app. CN 201610452235.3; priority 2016-06-22. (Published; deemed withdrawn 2018-07-10 — but still a printed publication.)
• Dates: filed 2016-06-22; published 2016-09-07.
• Disclosure: A truss (桁架) carrying cooling deltas (冷却三角), with an axial fan (轴流风机) beneath; vertical beams (竖梁) hung down from the fan cylinder, from whose lower ends is suspended an octagonal-prism guide cylinder (八棱柱状导风筒); diagonal brace beams (斜撑梁) connect the guide cylinder to the truss; and directly below the guide cylinder are a transverse wind-blocking plate network (横向挡风板网) and a longitudinal wind-blocking plate network (纵向挡风板网), arranged in a cross/plus (十字形) and fixed at their ends to the truss. The stated effect is overcoming crosswind impact and increasing fan intake. Sources: https://doc.taixueshu.com/patent/CN105928378A.html ; https://m.tianyancha.com/zhuanli/90312f8429a4439785648049d2c25de9
• §102 assessment: No anticipation of claims 1/8/9 — the wind-deflecting elements are plate networks (网) in a cross layout suspended under a guide cylinder, not "exactly two vertically spaced elongated vanes" inclined with downstream edge higher and both below the same first upstream fan. Notably, however, this reference is directly on point for dependent claim 4: it discloses braces (斜撑梁) running between a lower region and a longitudinally spaced support — i.e., §103 material against claim 4 (which depends from claim 3).

3.8 Examiner/family-cited background art (brief)

The record also lists family citations — GB 282,932 A (Branczik, 1928), HU 165,929 B (1974), US 4,397,793 A (Stillman, 1983), GB 2,031,139 A (Renault, 1980), JP H0610583 B2 (Ishikawajima-Harima, 1994) — all cooling-tower draft/airflow-deflection art. None is directed to ACC fan-streamline vane placement and none anticipates any '329 claim; they are cited as general environment.

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4. Bottom line on §102 / §103

• §102 anticipation: none located. No single one of the 11 cited references discloses the full combination required by issued claims 1, 8 and 9 — in particular (a) exactly two stationary, vertically spaced, elongated vanes, (b) fixed below the same longitudinal end, (c) inclined with the downstream edge higher and pointing to the second lateral end, (d) both directly below the same first upstream fan, and (e) the dual-streamline positioning (on the fan-derived streamline in no-wind and coincident with at least a portion of the wind-derived streamline in wind). The references closest to the function (Galebreaker US 8,997,828 / US 2012/0118513) and to the location (CN1858536A; CN105928378A) each miss at least the "exactly two stationary vanes directly under the first upstream fan" and the dual-streamline limitations.
• §103 is where the risk lies. The strongest combination is Galebreaker (curved members guiding external wind along a fan air path, boosting fan performance) in view of CN1858536A (fixed/angled inlet guide plates under an ACC platform), with the Ormat '842/'630 family supplying the "redirect below-array crosswind" teaching. Claim 2 (opposite-direction second pair for wind shifts) and claim 4 (braces from column bottom to a spaced intermediate column — taught by CN105928378A's 斜撑梁) are the dependent claims most exposed on a §103 theory. Claims 5 and 7 (vanes following a streamline; curved vanes with progressively increasing projected horizontal dimension/distance up the stack) appear to be the best-defended, as I found no reference disclosing vane curvature/dimensioning keyed to the fan-derived streamline geometry.

5. Caveats / conflicts to flag

• No contradiction with the previously generated sections: those found no litigation/PTAB/CAFC activity, and nothing in this citation analysis conflicts with that. The prior sections already noted the '329 claims were narrowed during prosecution; this analysis confirms that the narrowing (exactly-two-vane, same-longitudinal-end, same-first-upstream-fan, dual-streamline) is precisely what defeats anticipation on the cited art.
• Verification limits (stated as limitations, not negatives):
  1. I worked from the USPTO citation list as reproduced by Google Patents; I could not open the USPTO PatentCenter/Patent Public Search interface directly in this session. A docket-level re-pull of the "References Cited" and any IDS "considered-but-not-cited" art is advisable.
  2. For CN 202074846 U I obtained only the title/abstract (no full Chinese claim text), so my §102 conclusion on it is low-confidence.
  3. US 9,651,269 B2 is named in the '329 specification as incorporated by reference but does not appear in the Google Patents citation table; treat it as part of the same Ormat/Bronicki–Fisher family rather than as a separately examined reference.
  4. Anticipation of a U.S. claim by a foreign-language Chinese reference requires a certified translation/affidavit; the CN characterizations above are based on the Chinese text as retrieved and should be confirmed by translation before any reliance.

If you'd like, I can next (a) attempt to pull the full claim text of CN 202074846 U and CN 205156661 U for a tighter §102 read, or (b) draft a formal element-by-element §102/§103 claim chart for claim 1 against the Galebreaker + CN1858536 combination.

I'll ground this analysis in the prior art of record, verifying key references before combining them.

Let me verify the two remaining key references of record — the Galebreaker shield-system family and the Chinese ACC air-inlet guide patent.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 10,871,329 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Patent: US 10,871,329 B2, "Wind guiding vane apparatus," Ormat Technologies, Inc.; inventors Fiterman & Mendler; filed 2018-03-19; granted 2020-12-22; 9 claims (indep. 1, 8, 9).
Source for all claim text quoted below: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10871329/en ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/10871329

Scope of this report: I use only the references appearing in the Prior Art section of the patent page (Cited-by-Examiner list, Patent Citations list, and Similar Documents list), plus the reference content I was able to retrieve and verify in this session. Where I could not retrieve full text of a reference, I say so.

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0. Two framing points before the analysis

(a) This is a "secondary reference" problem, not a "primary reference" problem. The novelty of claim 1 does not lie in redirecting crosswind under an ACC — that concept, and the specific problem it addresses (fan stall, static-pressure loss below the fan deck, loss of effective heat-transfer area, upstream-fan performance collapse in high crosswind), is squarely in the prior art of record. The novelty lies in three narrow structural recitations added during prosecution:

1. the vanes are "exactly two," vertically spaced, elongated, at one longitudinal end;
2. the two vanes are inclined so the downstream edge is higher than the upstream edge and points toward the second lateral end and away from the first; and
3. both vanes are directly below the same first upstream fan.

Everything else in claims 1 and 8 (the "linear and angular position such that each vane is (1) on, without disturbing, the fan-derived streamline … and (2) coincident with at least a portion of a wind-derived streamline"; redirect "at such an angle that deviates from perpendicular, fairly horizontal inflow") is written as a positional/functional result of placing a vane somewhere under the ACC. That distinction drives the whole analysis below.

(b) Prosecution posture creates the burden. Per the legal-events record on the patent page, the application received a final rejection on 2020-03-25 and issued only after the "exactly two / inclined / same first upstream fan" limitations were in place. That tells me the examiner regarded the of-record art (including CN 1858536 A, CN 202074846 U, CN 105928378 A, CN 205156661 U, US 8,302,670, US 2012/0118513 / US 8,997,828, and Ormat's own US 2015/0034276, US 2015/0096736, US 9,587,842, US 9,689,630) as not teaching or suggesting those three structural limitations in combination. Any § 103 challenge therefore has to be built to reach that specific combination, and must explain why the examiner's presumed reading was too narrow.

Flag on the record itself: the page lists a PCT ISR and Written Opinion dated 2019-08-26 in PCT/IB2019/052171 among the Non-Patent Citations. I was not able to retrieve their contents. Those documents would state the art the international search authority considered most relevant and the reasoning applied — they are the single highest-value documents to obtain before finalizing any invalidity position. I flag this as a genuine gap, not a negative finding.

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1. Level of ordinary skill in the art (Graham factor 1)

A PHOSITA here is a mechanical or thermal-systems engineer with roughly 2–5 years' experience in the design, siting, or performance optimization of air-cooled heat rejection equipment (ACCs, air coolers, cooling towers), familiar with:

• the mechanics of axial-fan performance degradation under crosswind, windwall/Venturi effects, and fan stall (this is standard, well-documented ACC engineering — see the Galebreaker technical literature retrieved at https://galebreaker.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/article_ccj_article.pdf);
• structural steel design for ACC bays (fan deck, columns, girts, braces), which is conventional in the art and disclosed in US 8,302,670 ("a frame 14 is typically an internal lattice framework having columns and girts"); and
• CFD tools (Navier–Stokes solvers with turbulence models) for modelling flow under and through an ACC, which by 2012–2017 was a routine design tool in this field. The '329 specification itself states the vane location, size, and orientation "have been determined with use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis," and Ormat's own prior patents ('842/'630/'492) run CFD simulations with crossflow velocity ranges, plant altitude, and crossflow angles — i.e., the tool and methodology were already the applicant's own standard practice.

This matters because several claim limitations are ultimately outputs of a CFD optimization, and optimization by a known method to a known design goal is the classic KSR "predictable variation" scenario.

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2. Two claim-construction anomalies to flag for the invalidity team

Anomaly 1 — "one or more" vs. "exactly two" within a single claim. Claim 1 recites element (b) as "one or more stationary wind guiding vanes," then later recites "wherein the one or more stationary wind guiding vanes comprises exactly two vertically spaced and elongated wind guiding vanes…" The claim is therefore self-limiting to exactly two; the "one or more" language is surplusage that cannot broaden the claim. Claim 8 (method) and claim 9 (apparatus) repeat the same structure. Practical consequence: claim 9 is claim 1 with the word "horizontal" deleted and is the broadest claim. If claim 1 is invalid, claim 9 falls a fortiori.

Anomaly 2 — the claim language is broader than the specification. The specification and abstract consistently recite deviation "significantly" from perpendicular horizontal inflow; claims 1, 8 and 9 recite deviation "deviates from perpendicular, fairly horizontal inflow" with the adverb dropped. The claims are also silent on the specification's own defined threshold ("windy conditions … speed of winds to be greater than 5 m/s, for example between 5-10 m/s"). Both are written-description/enablement-adjacent issues (§ 112) but they also expand the § 103 target: the claims do not require the deflection to be significant, and do not require any particular wind speed. The "deviates from … fairly horizontal inflow" limitation is therefore a weak discriminator — nearly any angled baffle under a fan "deviates" airflow from horizontal.

Anomaly 3 — the "streamline" limitations are functional/positional, not structural. "(1) positioned on, without disturbing, a fan-derived air flow streamline … during no wind conditions and during operation of the one or more fans … and (2) coincident with at least a portion of a wind-derived air flow streamline produced during windy conditions" describes where a vane ends up in a flow field, not what the vane is. Under § 103 this is given weight, but it is met by any vane whose position is such that it lies along the fan-induced inflow on a calm day while intercepting crosswind, regardless of whether the designer ever computed a streamline. Claims 5 and 7 confirm this reading by tying the structure to the streamline tangency: claim 5 requires the vane's slope to equal the streamline slope at the tangent region, and claim 7 requires stacked curved vanes whose horizontal dimension and distance-to-ACC-bottom-plane progressively increase from top to bottom. These are the geometric consequences of following streamlines, and they are exactly what a CFD-driven optimization produces.

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3. The prior art of record — element-by-element mapping

The single most important of-record teaching for the "exactly two / first upstream fan" limitation is Ormat's own US 9,587,842 FIG. 1D, which the patent page's retrieval of that document reproduces verbatim:

"the mass flow through F1, the fan closest to the wind side, drops down sharply with the wind speed and equals to half its maximum at 4.5 m/sec … and to zero at wind speed of 7.0 m/sec" while "the changes in mass flow through F3, which is farthest from the wind side, as function of the wind speed, are negligible."

That is the applicant's own prior-art quantification that only the upstream fans need protection. The '329 specification reaches the identical conclusion as if it were a discovery: "only two wind guiding vanes are needed for a unit of three fans … a third wind guiding vane to redirect the air flow to downstream fan 26C is unnecessary." The prior art put the patentee in possession of that insight six years earlier.

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4. The three strongest § 103 combinations

Combination A (primary): Ormat's own U.S. 9,587,842 / 9,689,630 / 10,247,492 in view of Galebreaker US 2012/0118513 / US 8,997,828, optionally in further view of US 8,302,670, CN 105928378 A, or CN 1858536 A

Why this is the cleanest attack: the primary reference is the same assignee, same problem, same architecture, same terminology — it was cited by the examiner and is incorporated by reference into the '329 specification itself. There is no field-of-invention gap to bridge and no hindsight reconstruction needed for the concept.

What the primary teaches. The Ormat family discloses (i) a horizontal ACC of finned tube arrays with fans below/above, mounted above grade on legs, (ii) wind deflectors mounted below the finned tube sections, (iii) control logic in which, at zero wind, the deflectors are raised out of the fan flow path, and at wind they are lowered into the crosswind to redirect it, and (iv) — decisively — louvers installed below the fans specifically to turn the horizontal wind so it flows "in the direction of the axis of the fans." Source for (iv): the Ormat family abstract as retrieved, "A wind louver is arranged to divert wind flowing in an approximately horizontal direction below the one of the plurality of fans to instead flow in a direction that is more vertically upward."

The only material differences between Combination A's primary and claim 1 are: (a) the primary's deflectors/louvers are pivotal and actuator-driven rather than "stationary"/"immobilized"; (b) the primary does not expressly say "exactly two"; and (c) the primary does not expressly say "both directly below a same first upstream fan" (though FIG. 3E shows one below each fan, and FIG. 1D gives the reason to favor the first).

Bridging difference (a) — the "stationary" requirement. This is where the case is strongest and also where it is cleanest:

• The patentee conceded the motivation in its own specification. The '329 specification states: "U.S. Pat. Nos. 9,587,842, 9,651,269 and 9,689,630 … disclose wind guiding vanes or deflectors that are mounted for rotation about a vertical axis, so that their pivot angle or height is changeable in response to sensor readings. The need for controlling displacement of the wind guiding vanes or deflectors unduly adds costs to the system." A statement in the specification identifying a known problem with the closest prior art and asserting that the invention solves it by removal of a component is, under KSR, the paradigm of an obvious improvement. Web search confirmed the spec text at https://patents.google.com/patent/US10871329/en ("It is an object of the present invention to provide stationary wind guiding vane apparatus for increasing the thermal performance of ACCs during windy periods").
• The art already contained fixed versions. Galebreaker's commercial literature distinguishes a "Fixed System Solution" (wind shields fixed in place, "Maintenance free," no control box) from a "Rolling System Solution" (anemometer, temperature sensor, control box, motorized). The fixed system is disclosed in the same patent family cited of record (US 8,997,828 describes manual and motorized variants; the pre-motorized "cruciform screens … fabricated using 55%-solid PVC-coated polyester mesh" installed at King's Lynn in 1998 are described in the retrieved Combined Cycle Journal article). So replacing an actuator-driven deflector with a fixed one, at a given site, is not merely obvious — it was already commercially deployed in the same field, on the same equipment, for the same purpose.
• Result predictability: removing articulation is a mechanical simplification with a predictable trade-off (lose adaptivity to variable wind, gain simplicity and reliability). The '329 patent itself asserts the fixed configuration is just as good as the articulated one ("Even so, the wind guiding vanes described herein also bring about an improvement of performance of the first two fans even when winds of about 3 m/s prevail"; and Ormat's WGC 2020 paper reports ~14% complete-bay airflow recovery at 7 m/s). If the fixed geometry performs equivalently to the actively controlled geometry, the art as a whole would have suggested the fixed geometry as an obvious design option.

Bridging difference (b) — "exactly two." This is a count. Three independent things make it obvious:

1. Ormat '842 FIG. 1D establishes that the downstream fan's mass flow change as a function of wind speed is "negligible," while the windward fan's flow is halved at 4.5 m/s and reaches zero at 7 m/s. A PHOSITA seeking a cost-effective wind mitigation device would apply vanes to the affected fans and not to the unaffected ones. The '329 specification's own statement that a third vane "is unnecessary" is thus a statement of a result already in the prior art, not a new discovery.
2. Galebreaker '828 FIG. 7/8 discloses two vertically stacked sheets per location (upper sheets 804A/804B and lower sheets 802A/802B between three curved members) — the "two vertically spaced" structure is expressly present.
3. Choosing between two and three of a flow-directing element is a predictable variation / optimization of a result-effective variable; there is no unexpected result recited in the claims (no numerical thresholds, no performance envelope), and any incremental performance is a linear/diminishing-return function of adding baffles to more of the same fans.

Bridging difference (c) — "both directly below a same first upstream fan." Ormat '842 FIG. 3E places louvers below the fans; CN 105928378 A places the guide duct and cross-grids directly below the axial fan. Positioning them under the first upstream fan follows directly from the FIG. 1D data (that is the fan whose flow collapses). This is the definition of an obvious choice among a finite number of identified, predictable solutions.

Reasonable expectation of success. The Ormat family's own CFD simulation parameters (ambient temperature 10 °C, frontal velocity range 0–14 m/s, crossflow angles 30°/45°/60°, ACC heights 20′ and 40′) establish that the flow field under an ACC was amenable to simulation and that the effect of a deflector at a given position could be predicted before installation. There was therefore a reasonable expectation that a fixed vane placed under the windward fan would produce the intended flow-turning effect.

Net result: Combination A renders claims 1, 8 and 9 obvious. It also renders claim 5 obvious (the vane slope follows the fan air path — exactly Galebreaker's "curved or angled in a direction similar to that of the air path"), claim 6 obvious (a flat plate is the cheapest baffle; the '329 spec says vanes "are preferably straight to reduce their cost"), and claim 7 obvious (curved, stacked, progressively larger — the natural result of conforming successive vanes to successively larger streamlines, and Galebreaker's upper/lower sheet tiers show the stacked arrangement).

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Combination B: CN 105928378 A (or CN 205156661 U, or CN 1858536 A / CN 2929622) in view of Ormat US 9,587,842 / 9,689,630

Primary: CN 105928378 A (国网山西省电力公司电力科学研究院; published 2016-09-07; cited by the examiner). It discloses, for a direct air-cooled unit: a truss 1, cooling delta 2, an axial fan 3 at the base of the delta, vertical downward-hanging beams 4 on the fan shroud, an eight-sided prismatic guide duct 5 suspended from those beams, diagonal brace beams 6 between duct and truss, and — directly below the guide duct — a horizontal wind-blocking plate grid 7 and a longitudinal wind-blocking plate grid 8 arranged crosswise, both fixed to the truss. Its stated object is precisely the object of the '329 patent: overcome the adverse effect of natural crosswind on ACC fans and increase fan intake volume. Retrieved: https://patents.google.com/patent/CN105928378A/zh ; https://doc.taixueshu.com/patent/CN105928378A.html

Primary: CN 1858536 A (江苏双良; published 2006-11-08; cited by examiner) / its apparent utility-model sibling CN 2929622 — a guide/wind-blocking device (5) mounted on the top edge of the perimeter wind wall of a direct air-cooled condenser for a power station, which turns horizontal crosswind or downwash into vertical upward flow to cancel the harmful wind effect and generate draft. https://patent.wf.pub/article:CN200620074188.5

Secondary: Ormat '842/'630 supplies the elements the CN references lack: (i) the horizontal-ACC architecture with arrays "installed above the ground/floor by FH to allow free flow of air under" them; (ii) the express dual-mode positioning — deflectors raised out of the flow at zero wind and lowered into the wind flow when wind blows (FIGS. 3A–3D); (iii) deflectors on both sides of the array (claim 2 of '842: "a further wind deflector installed on the other long side of the finned tube arrays") with the side farther from the wind adjusted differently — which is the express antecedent for claim 2's oppositely-inclined second pair; and (iv) the FIG. 1D quantification that only the windward fans need protection.

Motivation to combine: both families are in the identical technical field (F28B 9/00 — auxiliary systems for steam/vapour condensers, which is the '329's own primary class), address the identical problem statement (crosswind degradation of ACC fan flow), and target the identical structure (fixed guide plate/duct below the axial fan of a direct air-cooled condenser). A PHOSITA looking to improve on Ormat's actuator-driven deflectors would look to lower-cost passive ACC wind-guiding structures, and the CN art supplies exactly that. There is no teaching away: nothing in the CN references disparages combination with a horizontal-ACC architecture or with deflectors on more than one side.

Net result: Combination B renders claims 1, 8 and 9 obvious. The "exactly two, both below the first upstream fan" limitation is reached by (i) applying the CN guide-plate concept to the first upstream fan only, per Ormat FIG. 1D, and (ii) selecting two vertically spaced baffles, which CN 105928378 A's crosswise grid pair (horizontal grid 7 + longitudinal grid 8, "呈十字形布设") and CN 2929622's wind-wall guide structure make a matter of routine.

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Combination C: US 8,302,670 (SPX) in view of Ormat '842 and CN 1858536 A

Primary: US 8,302,670 (cited by examiner) discloses a tower with a base on the ground and a lower framework of "columns and girts" supporting a fan deck with shrouded fans; substantially non-porous side walls; and "a downwardly and outwardly projecting substantially non-porous elongated upper air guide extending downwardly and outwardly from the side wall," "substantially in the configuration of an awning," "supported at its lower end by a horizontal support strut," with "a plurality of support struts … at regular lengths along the air guide." Its stated purpose includes improving "tower performance when subjected to winds from various angles."

This reference directly supplies: the downward-and-outwardly inclined, higher-downstream-edge geometry; the strut/column support and immobilization of the guide; non-porous sheet construction; and the ground-supported ACC tower architecture of claim 1 element (a). What it lacks — vanes located below the condenser tubes, the dual-streamline positioning, and the "exactly two below the first fan" arrangement — is supplied by Ormat '842 (vanes under the coil, raised at no-wind, lowered at wind) and by CN 1858536 A (fixed wind-to-vertical guide, expressly for crosswind).

Motivation: a PHOSITA seeking to redirect crosswind into the fan inlet rather than merely shield the tower is led by US 8,302,670's own disclosure (air guides improve "tower performance when subjected to winds from various angles") to reposition the same awning-like angled plate lower down, under the fan deck, where the '842 louvers already sit — a change in location of a known element with a predictable effect.

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5. A significant reference not on the face of the record

The "Similar Documents" list on the patent page includes WO 2019/046562 A1, "Air cooled condenser (ACC) wind mitigation system" (list date 2019-03-07), whose U.S. counterpart US 11,067,338 I was able to retrieve. It discloses deflectors positioned adjacent the axial-fan intake that direct incoming crosswind in the vertical direction (scoop-type deflectors and elbow deflectors, some with internal vanes), expressly to "eliminate the stagnation zone at the fan inlet near the bottom portion of shroud 422, thereby reducing the static pressure at the fan inlet and increasing the available airflow to the fan." It reports CFD results (at 6.5 m/s wind) with a 25% airflow increase for a scoop deflector. Retrieved: https://patents.justia.com/patent/[11067338](/patent/11067338)

Why this matters: its priority date is 2017-09-01, before the '329 filing date of 2018-03-19, and it is a WIPO publication of an international application designating the United States — making it available as § 102(a)(2) art. It is not in the Citations or Patent Citations tables on the patent page, so it appears the examiner did not consider it. It is materially stronger than the CN art because it (i) is expressly directed at converting horizontal crosswind into vertical fan-inlet flow, (ii) quantifies the benefit, and (iii) uses CFD as the design method — matching the '329 specification's own stated methodology. Combined with Ormat '842 (vanes under the coil, out of the flow at no wind, in the flow at wind) and CN 105928378 A (fixed guide below the fan), it supplies the redirection-at-the-fan-inlet element with an unusually explicit motivation.

I could not retrieve the contents of WO 2019/046562 A1 itself or of RU 2,445,426 C1 ("Air flow guide for condenser with air cooling," listed in Similar Documents), so I flag those as documents requiring verification before they are relied upon.

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6. Dependent claims 2–7 and claim 9

Claim 2 (two additional, oppositely inclined vanes for a wind shift).

• Ormat '842 claim 2: "further including a further wind deflector installed on the other long side of the finned tube arrays."
• Ormat '842 FIGS. 3B and 3C: deflector 326A lowered / 326B raised when wind blows right-to-left; deflector 336A raised / 336B lowered when wind blows left-to-right — the mirror-image inclination, expressly tied to a change in wind direction.
• Ormat '842 control table, entry 4: "Ambient wind speed growing — Expect need to decrease angle β of wind deflector located on the side of heat exchanger farther from the wind side."
• Galebreaker '828: fixing arrangements on more than one side of the structure; "there are two of the pairs of fixing members, fitted at spaced apart locations to the structure."
• CN 105928378 A: the crosswise horizontal (7) / longitudinal (8) grid pair already provides bidirectional wind-blocking.

Claim 2 therefore adds nothing that is not the express subject of the of-record art, and the motivation (wind direction shifts, which the '329 specification acknowledges "can sometimes be sudden") is explicitly recognized in Ormat '842's FIG. 3C and in Galebreaker's multi-side installations. Claim 2 is obvious over Combination A or B alone, and a fortiori over A+B.

Claim 3 (laterally spaced columns). US 8,302,670 discloses the ACC "internal lattice framework having columns and girts." The '329's own columns 15A–15C are described as "adapted to support the underside of ACC 14" — i.e., they are the ACC's existing support columns, which are disclosed in US 8,302,670 and inherent in any elevated ACC. Obvious.

Claim 4 (braces from a column's bottom region to an upper region of a longitudinally spaced intermediate column). This is conventional structural steel bracing. The CN 105928378 A abstract expressly recites 斜撑梁 (diagonal brace beams 6) "between the eight-sided guide duct 5 and the truss 1." The motivation is structural necessity — supporting a large cantilevered vane under an elevated deck — which is a design constraint, not an inventive contribution. Obvious.

Claim 5 (vane slope equals the fan-streamline slope at the tangent region). Galebreaker '828: fixing members "fitted to a part of the structure either side of the air path and each of the elongate members may be curved or angled in a direction similar to that of the air path." Setting a baffle's angle equal to the local flow angle is the definition of "aligned with the flow," and CFD made the local flow angle computable as a matter of routine. Obvious.

Claim 6 (planar vanes). Galebreaker's sheets are flat; US 8,302,670's air guide is "an angled solid or generally non-porous sheet"; the '329 specification concedes straight vanes are "preferred to reduce their cost." Obvious.

Claim 7 (curved vanes stacked with progressively increasing projected horizontal dimension and distance to the ACC bottom plane). This is the geometric signature of a family of vanes each conforming to a successively larger streamline — which is what happens when one repeats the claim 5 step at successively lower elevations. US 8,302,670 discloses curved/angled elongate members; Galebreaker '828 FIG. 8 discloses upper and lower tiers of sheets at different heights between curved members. The progressive increase is a predictable geometric result of the stacked arrangement, not an unexpected one, and the specification offers no data showing that any other progression would fail or that this one yields a surprising result. Obvious, though this is the weakest of the dependent claims because the specific progression is more particularized than the rest of the claim set.

Claim 9. Claim 1 with "horizontal" removed. Strictly broader. If claim 1 is obvious, claim 9 is obvious; and the removal of "horizontal" removes the only architectural qualifier, bringing the claim squarely onto US 8,302,670's tower (which is not described as a "horizontal ACC") and the Ormat family's arrays. Claim 9 is the most exposed claim in the set.

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7. Motivations to combine — consolidated (KSR / Graham articulation)

1. Same field, same problem, same equipment. US 8,302,670 (F28B 1/06, F28F 25/12), Ormat '842/'630/'492 (F28B 1/06, F28F 27/00), CN 105928378 A (F28B 9/00), CN 1858536 A, and the '329 patent itself (F28B 9/00, F28B 1/06, F28F 13/06, F28F 25/12, F28F 27/003) all sit in the same CPC subclasses. This is not analogous-art bridging; it is a single art.
2. Common problem statement, stated identically in multiple references. US 8,997,828: "Cross winds combined with certain temperatures are known to lower fan performance and have a detrimental impact on the efficiency of air coolers (AC)." Ormat '842: "the flow of coolant air through the heat exchanger may be disturbed and even completely blocked." CN 105928378 A: overcome adverse effects of natural crosswind on ACC fans. The '329 patent restates the same problem.
3. Design incentive + predictable solution (KSR, "finite number of identified, predictable solutions"). Retain the geometry of the known deflector; fix it in place; apply it to the fan whose flow the art has shown collapses; use two rather than three where the third fan is shown to be unaffected.
4. Known problem with the closest prior art, identified in the patentee's own specification. The '329 specification criticizes '842/'269/'630 because "the need for controlling the displacement of the wind guiding vanes or deflectors unduly adds costs to the system." Elimination of a component to reduce cost, where the prior art already discloses a fixed variant (Galebreaker Fixed System), is classically obvious.
5. Optimization by a known method. CFD with a turbulence model was the applicant's own prior practice (Ormat '842/'492 run CFD with crossflow angles 30/45/60°, ACC heights 20′/40′, 0–14 m/s) and was commercially used in the field (Galebreaker offers "CFD Modelling … provides the optimum … configuration for your site"; the Combined Cycle Journal article documents CFD modelling at Coryton and smoke/vacuum testing across many sites). Using CFD to place vanes on computed streamlines is not inventive subject matter.
6. Reasonable expectation of success. Each reference reports measured or simulated improvements for its own configuration (CN 105928378 A: increased fan intake; US 11,067,338: 25% airflow increase; Ormat WGC 2020: 14% complete-bay recovery at 7 m/s), so a PHOSITA combining them would expect at least additive benefit.

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8. The best non-obviousness counterarguments the patentee will raise — and my assessment

(i) "No reference discloses vanes positioned simultaneously on the fan-derived streamline (no wind) and coincident with the wind-derived streamline (windy)."
This is the patentee's strongest point, and it is the crux of the case. Ormat '842's FIG. 3A (deflectors raised to β ≈ 180° when wind velocity is zero) achieves "without disturbing" the fan flow by articulation, not by positioning on the streamline. Galebreaker's "curved or angled … similar to that of the air path" language speaks to the fixing members, not to the sheet, and speaks to guiding wind toward the fan, not to lying along the fan-induced streamline. The patentee will argue that the insight — that a fixed vane can be located so that it is invisible to the fan-induced flow yet exposed to the crosswind flow — is the invention.

My assessment: this element is a functional/positional result, and under KSR a result that is the natural consequence of the reference's structure cannot carry patentability. Two convergence points cut against the patentee: (1) Galebreaker's fixing members oriented "in a direction similar to that of the air path" is the fan-streamline alignment, and the sheet spanning them sits at that alignment; and (2) claim 5's own framing — "same slope as the slope of the fan-derived air flow streamline … at a wind guiding vane region which is tangent to the fan-derived air flow streamline" — reduces the asserted insight to a tangency condition that a PHOSITA can satisfy by drawing the vane tangent to the CFD-computed no-wind streamline. That is optimization, not invention. I would expect this argument to be rebuttable, but it is the argument the patentee will lead with, and it is the reason the examiner allowed the case.

(ii) "No reference discloses a stationary, non-actuated vane at all."
Weak, given the Galebreaker fixed-system disclosure and CN 105928378 A / CN 205156661 U / CN 1858536 A / US 8,302,670, all of which are fixed structures.

(iii) "No reference discloses exactly two vanes both below the same first upstream fan."
Moderate at best. Ormat '842 FIG. 3E shows louvers below each fan (three, not two, not "first only"), so "exactly two under the first fan" is not literally disclosed. But it is reached by (a) applying the FIG. 1D teaching that F1 collapses and F3 is unaffected, and (b) the two-tier Galebreaker arrangement. This is the classic "obvious to try"/"optimization" limitation, and the absence of any claimed range or numerical limit makes it hard for the patentee to show criticality.

(iv) Secondary considerations. The patentee has real evidence — the Ormat "WIND GUIDING VANES PATENT" announcement (recovering 2000 MWh/yr at Don A. Campbell; https://www.ormat.com/en/company/news/view/?ContentId=8816) and the WGC 2020 paper reporting 14% complete-bay airflow recovery at 7 m/s. Note the nexus problem: the commercial-embodiment evidence attaches to the WGV system as a whole (a two-vane configuration at the first fan of a bay), which does map onto the claims reasonably well — that is a genuine nexus argument for claim 1. But the evidence also shows no measurable no-wind penalty ("similar values (within the error range) before and after WGV installation"), which the patentee will frame as unexpected; I would answer that (a) the art already taught keeping deflectors out of the fan flow at no wind (Ormat '842 FIG. 3A), so the absence of a no-wind penalty was expected, and (b) the results were confirmed by CFD and the art's CFD methods were conventional, so the achievement is the predictable output of a known analysis method. The patentee's strongest secondary-consideration point is the magnitude of the commercial benefit combined with the field's years-long reliance on adjustable or screen-based solutions (Galebreaker's screens reduce, rather than redirect, inflow) — this is a credible "long-felt need / prior approach failed" narrative and should be tested directly.

(v) Foreign prosecution. The family shows EP 3769021 B1 granted (2024-12-04) and RU 2788790 C2 granted. Grant of the EP case is some evidence that at least the EPO considered the same or similar art insufficient. It is not dispositive — the EPO cited different art (the EP 2 369 282 A3 partial search report in the record cites DE 1946915, EP 0553435, DE 1960619, DE 202005005302 U1 and US 3888305 against an SPX natural-draft tower application, which is a different family), and EPO claim sets and claim construction differ. Still, the patentee will cite it, and the EP prosecution file and any EP opposition history should be obtained.

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9. Bottom line

Claims 1, 8 and 9 are, in my assessment, vulnerable to a § 103 challenge, but not to a clean single-reference challenge. The concept of redirecting crosswind into an ACC fan, the use of fixed guide structures below or at the fan inlet, the use of angled planar or curved plates, the placement of multiple elements under a fan, the horizontal-ACC architecture with free flow beneath, the removal of the windward fans' performance penalty, and even the recognition that only the upstream fans are affected — all appear in the prior art of record, largely in the patentee's own earlier patents. The claim survives only on the combination of (i) exactly two vanes, (ii) inclined with the downstream edge higher, at one longitudinal end, and (iii) both under the same first upstream fan — plus the functional "on-the-fan-streamline-without-disturbing / coincident-with-the-wind-streamline" positioning language. That is a narrow, largely result-oriented delta, and KSR supplies the bridge: obvious design choice among a small set of identified solutions, predictable variation, and the patentee's own concession that eliminating the actuators from the '842/'269/'630 deflectors was a cost problem worth solving.

The most likely-to-succeed combination is Ormat US 9,587,842 / 9,689,630 (primary) + Galebreaker US 2012/0118513 / US 8,997,828 (fixed shield, curved/angled members following the air path, multi-side installation) + US 8,302,670 or CN 105928378 A (inclined/fixed guide structure below the fan), with WO 2019/046562 A1 / US 11,067,338 as a high-value supplementary reference the examiner appears not to have had.

Caveats I am obligated to state:

• I could not retrieve full text of CN 1858536 A, CN 202074846 U, or CN 205156661 U; my characterization of those rests on titles/abstracts as listed on the patent page plus the retrieved text of the apparent CN 2929622 sibling of CN 1858536 A. Full-text verification is required before relying on them.
• I could not retrieve the PCT ISR and Written Opinion of 2019-08-26 (listed among Non-Patent Citations). Those documents contain the international authority's relevance reasoning and should be obtained first.
• I did not retrieve WO 2019/046562 A1 itself; my characterization of the family is from US 11,067,338 as found via search, and the § 102(a)(2) analysis of the WO publication assumes it designates the United States and was published in English (both stated on the page's Similar Documents list, but not independently verified here).
• Nothing in this report should be read as a conclusion of law. These are technical mappings and obviousness arguments, not an invalidity opinion, and I have not performed an exhaustive search beyond the prior-art section of this patent page and the references retrieved in this session.
• Consistent with the earlier sections of this analysis, no litigation and no PTAB/IPR record for US 10,871,329 was located; that remains a search limitation rather than a confirmed negative.