US 8698336

I'll run searches to check for USPTO records and any CAFC 2026 docket activity for this specific patent number.

Let me run a couple more targeted checks for litigation/docket activity and USPTO records for this exact number.

US 8,698,336 B2 — Analyst Summary

Sourcing note

My searches were run against general web indexes (which include Google Patents, Justia, FreePatentsOnline, USPTO-hosted PDFs, and CAFC materials), not a logged-in PatentCenter or PACER/CAFC docket query. I found no docket or litigation record for this patent. Uncertainties are flagged below.

Bibliographic data (from the authoritative full text)

Related family members include EP 2556243 B1 (still shown as active), JP 6087276 B2, KR 101761328 B1, CN 103069156 B, AU 2011237561 B2, CA 2795926 C, ES 2599406 T3, plus the two GB priority cases GB 2479407 A and GB 2479403 A.

Abstract (verbatim substance)

A wind turbine comprising a shaft (2); a plurality of blade arrangements (8), each rotatable around the shaft and having a blade (7), the blade arrangements and blades forming a blade rotor; at least first and second bearing arrangements (6) spaced axially along the shaft, the blade rotor being connected to the bearing arrangements; and a direct drive generator comprising a stator (10) rotationally fixed to the shaft and a generator rotor (9) having a rim. The first and second bearing arrangements each transmit radial forces from the blade rotor to the shaft, and at least one transmits bending moments to the shaft. Each blade arrangement is connected to a point at or adjacent the rim of the generator rotor so as to transmit torque generated by the blade arrangement directly thereto, and the generator rotor (9) is within the blade rotor.

Independent claims — plain-language overview

The granted patent has a single independent claim: claim 1. Claims 2–20 all depend (directly on claim 1, or on claim 1 via claim 19). This is notable because the specification recites several "statements of invention" (numbered paragraphs 1, 8, 34 etc. in the description) covering broader and alternative rotor-only concepts; those broader concepts were not carried into the issued claim set as independent claims.

Claim 1 (wind turbine) requires, in plain terms:

1. A shaft, e.g., the fixed main shaft on the tower head.
2. Multiple blade arrangements, each rotatable around the shaft and carrying a blade.
3. At least two bearing arrangements spaced axially apart along the shaft.
4. A direct-drive generator (no gearbox) having:

• a stator rotationally fixed to the shaft, and
• a generator rotor with a rim that is connected to both the first and second bearing arrangements.

1. Load-path split at the bearings: both the first and second bearing arrangements transmit radial forces from the generator rotor to the shaft, and at least one of them separately transmits bending moments to the shaft (moment-stiff, "moment carrying" bearing behaviour).
2. Torque path: each blade arrangement is connected to a point at or adjacent the rim, so that the torque it generates is transmitted directly to the rim (i.e., the generator rotor itself reacts blade torque).
3. Straddling geometry: each blade arrangement has first and second legs that straddle the generator — i.e., the blade's support structure sweeps around (is on both sides of) the generator, consistent with the generator rotor being "within the blade rotor."

Selected dependent claims worth noting (all still tied to claim 1):

• Claim 2 — stator disposed between the two bearing arrangements.
• Claim 3 / 15 — blade joined via a pitch bearing, permitting pitch control.
• Claim 4 — rim connected to the two bearing arrangements by pairs of third and fourth legs lying in a plane containing or parallel to the shaft axis.
• Claim 5 — the connection to the rim point is via a flexible and/or pivoted link.
• Claim 6 — both bearing arrangements transmit bending moments.
• Claim 7 — first and second legs attach to the first and second bearing arrangements respectively.
• Claim 8 — generator rotor at least partially maintains the angular relationships of the blade arrangements and is separate from them; each blade arrangement communicates torque about the shaft substantially exclusively to the generator rotor.
• Claim 9 — blades unsupported at their radially outer ends (the tip-support-free feature that was in the description's paragraph 1 but is only a dependent claim here).
• Claim 10 — bearing arrangement comprises plane or rolling-element bearings whose outer races are rigidly connected to a pipe (pipe-form hub).
• Claim 11 / 20 — the two legs extend along lines that intersect at or adjacent the blade's centre of force for all force components parallel to the shaft.
• Claim 12 / 13 — blade rotor separate from the generator rotor, with the generator rotor within the blade rotor.
• Claim 16 — torque-transmitting first member is resilient and/or articulated so as to reduce or prevent transfer of axial-direction force components to the generator rotor.
• Claim 19 — second and third members in a plane containing the shaft, joined at first ends and attached to the bearing member at axially-spaced second ends.

Literal-reading caveats I want to flag:

• Claim 1 states the bearings transmit radial forces "from the generator rotor to the shaft," whereas the abstract and specification describe radial forces from the blade rotor to the shaft. I am reporting the claim language literally rather than harmonising it.
• Claim 1 does not itself recite "unsupported at their radially outer ends" or "fixed pitch"; unsupported outer ends appear only in dependent claim 9. The "fixed pitch / stall regulated" subject matter appears in the specification's rotor statements of invention and in the description, not as an independent granted claim.

USPTO / CAFC docket check — result: no hits found

• USPTO: The record shows normal prosecution and grant events and post-grant maintenance-fee events (4th-year fee paid 2017‑09‑28; reminder 2021‑12‑06; lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees 2022‑05‑23, effective 2022‑04‑15). No reissue, reexamination, IPR/PGR, or disclaimer events appear in the file histories I could surface.
• CAFC 2026 dockets: No case involving US 8,698,336 was found. I searched for Federal Circuit / 2026 docket material tied to this number and to Sway Turbine; the CAFC and general litigation results returned unrelated matters (e.g., other patents, other parties). Because the patent went abandoned for fee non‑payment in 2022, an active 2026 appeal on this patent is unlikely, but I cannot affirmatively certify a negative from web-index searches alone — a PACER/CAFC docket query would be required to state this conclusively.

Bottom line

US 8,698,336 B2, "Wind turbine rotor and wind turbine," is a Sway Turbine AS patent (Borgen, Carron, West) claiming a direct-drive wind turbine in which a moment-stiff, axially spaced twin bearing system carries radial and bending loads to the fixed shaft, blade torque is fed directly to the generator rotor rim, and each blade's support A-frame legs straddle the generator so the generator sits inside the blade rotor. It has one independent claim (claim 1). The patent is expired for non-payment of the 11.5-year maintenance fee as of 2022‑04‑15, and I found no USPTO post-grant proceeding and no CAFC 2026 appeal associated with the number — with the caveat that this reflects web-index searching rather than direct PACER/CAFC docket interrogation.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 8698336. Let me search multiple sources.

The initial searches returned mostly unrelated patents (e.g., 8,114,833, 8,301,833). Let me search more specifically for this patent and its assignee.

Let me check the Unified Patents litigation portal and docket databases directly for this specific patent.

Litigation search results for U.S. Patent No. 8,698,336

Bottom line: I found no known litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 8,698,336.

Based on the searches I was able to run, there is no district court case, ITC investigation, PTAB proceeding, or CAFC appeal on record that specifically names U.S. Patent No. 8,698,336.

What the patent is

• U.S. Patent No. 8,698,336 B2, "Wind turbine rotor and wind turbine"
• Application No. 13/639,677; filed 2011‑04‑08; granted 2014‑04‑15
• Priority: 2010‑04‑09 (GB1005917 and GB1005942)
• Assignee: Sway Turbine AS (Bergen, Norway)
• Inventors: Eystein Borgen, William Carron, Mark West
• Legal status per Google Patents: Expired – Fee Related (lapsed for nonpayment of maintenance fees, effective 2022‑04‑15)

Search evidence

• Searching for the patent number returned only bibliographic/patent-office pages (Google Patents, EPO, Justia Patents assignee listing). None of these contained any litigation section entries beyond the standard citation/cited‑by lists.
• The Sway Turbine AS patent portfolio pages and the Justia "Patents Assigned to Sway Turbine AS" listing show no infringement actions tied to this patent.
• Searches for the assignee ("Sway Turbine AS") returned regulatory, state‑aid, and press materials (e.g., Enova funding, EFTA Surveillance Authority decision), but no court case.
• Queries that returned unrelated litigation — e.g., Novo Nordisk v. Teva (Patent 8,114,833), Netlist v. Micron (Patent 8,301,833), NuVasive/Alphatec (ʼ832/ʼ156 patents), GE v. Siemens Gamesa, Gamesa v. Wobben — involved different patent numbers. Per the strict rule, I did not treat those as covering 8,698,336.

Important caveats

• My tool access for this task was limited, so I was unable to directly query the Unified Patents litigation portal, PACER, Docket Navigator, or Lexis/Westlaw litigation databases. My conclusion is based on the web-search results I could retrieve plus the Google Patents/Justia records, none of which reflect litigation for this number.
• Given the patent's Expired – Fee Related status since 2022 and that assignee Sway Turbine AS was a small Norwegian technology-development company (its large 10 MW prototype program was ultimately not commercially deployed at scale), it is plausible that the patent was never asserted in litigation. But I cannot state that with absolute certainty absent a direct PACER / Unified Patents docket check.

Recommended verification steps

To confirm definitively, check:

1. Unified Patents litigation portal – search by patent number 8698336.
2. PACER – party search for "Sway Turbine" in all district courts.
3. USPTO Patent Center / PTAB – confirm no IPR/PGR for this patent.
4. CAFC docket search for "8,698,336."

If none of those return hits, the appropriate conclusion is: No litigation is known involving U.S. Patent No. 8,698,336.

I'll verify the structured "no proceedings" finding against public PTAB/CAFC sources before writing up.

Let me run a couple more targeted checks — one for the assignee/patent in PTAB dockets, and one for any Federal Circuit appeal.

One more check against the Unified Patents litigation/PTAB portal and for any CAFC appeal.

AIA Trial Proceedings — U.S. Patent No. 8,698,336 ("Wind turbine rotor and wind turbine")

Source of record: the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block supplied with this prompt (USPTO Open Data Portal API ingest) — zero AIA trial proceedings. Web verification performed 2026-09-27 (Google Patents, Justia assignee listing, Unified Patents portal, PTAB petition/decision search) returned no petition, institution decision, FWD, notice of appeal, or CAFC opinion naming this patent. No proceeding numbers are invented below — the list is empty.

Proceedings overview

There are zero (0) AIA trial proceedings on U.S. Patent No. 8,698,336 — no IPRs, no PGRs, no CBMs; therefore no claims have been canceled, none have been sustained, none have been settled, and no institution has been denied.

The bottom-line defensive posture is unusual and is driven by something other than PTAB history: the patent is not a "hardened survivor" — it was never stress-tested at the Board at all. Instead, per the Google Patents legal-events record, the patent lapsed for nonpayment of maintenance fees, with the lapse effective 2022-04-15 and docketed 2022-05-23 (37 C.F.R. § 1.362; original event code LAPS/STCH), and it carries a current status of "Expired – Fee Related." Anticipated expiration per the record is 2031-04-08, but the fee lapse terminated enforceability roughly nine years early. For a defendant receiving a demand letter today, the PTAB posture is the secondary question; the primary question is whether the asserted patent was ever revived under 35 U.S.C. §§ 41(c)/41(c)(2) and 37 C.F.R. § 1.378. If it was not, there is no live cause of action, and the absence of any IPR is explained by the far simpler fact that nobody needed one. See the M.P.E.P. and USPTO Patent Center record for the fee history, and the petitioner-facing docket search links below.

Per-proceeding entries

None. There is nothing to report at proceeding-level granularity. Per the constraints of this task, I will not manufacture an IPR number, panel, or disposition.

What I checked, and what it showed:

Caveats I will not paper over:

• I could not directly query PTAB E2E / PTAB API (https://developer.uspto.gov/ptab-api/, https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/) or PACER in this session. My null result rests on the structured ODP block plus the web searches above, not on a direct PTAB docket pull.
• Foreign counterpart activity is not AIA activity. The EP counterpart EP2556243B1 was granted 2019-06-12 (applicant of record on the family listing: Innolith Assets AG, CH, having acquired from Sway Turbine AS). Whether an EPO opposition was filed within the nine-month Art. 99(1) EPC window (i.e., by ~2020-03-12) is an EPO Register question, not a PTAB question, and I did not obtain a confirmed answer — do not treat the EP grant as evidence either way. Note also that EPO oppositions carry no § 315(e)(2) estoppel effect in U.S. district court.
• Family/related U.S. patents that could in principle attract their own IPRs — e.g., US 8,729,721 (2008 priority family), US 9,194,373 and US 9,500,178 (Sway Turbine, 2011 priority) — were not confirmed to have any AIA proceeding either, but I did not exhaustively docket-check each. If you are defending a demand letter that cites more than one Sway patent, run each number separately.

Strategic summary

Claim status: 20 of 20 claims UNTESTED at the PTAB. Not canceled, not sustained, not construed by any panel. That cuts both ways. There is no IPR estoppel on the books (§ 315(e)(2) never attached, because no petitioner ever reached an FWD), so a well-funded defendant retains the full § 102/§ 103 arsenal against claims 1–20 — including the very prior art cited on the face of the patent (GB 1511948A1, US 4,330,714, US 4,350,895, WO 86/02701A1, WO 97/13979A1, US 7,042,109B2, US 2006/0251516A1, WO 2007/135391A2, US 2008/0242467A1, WO 2010/040829A2) and the examiner-cited EP 1394406A2 / EP 1657437A1 / EP 1783363A1. The prosecution history does, however, show a real narrowing story: independent claim 1 as issued is markedly narrower than the "Initial aspects" paragraph-1 formulation — it was amended to require that each bearing arrangement transmit radial forces from the generator rotor to the shaft and that the blade arrangements be connected "to a point at or adjacent the rim ... directly to the rim," and to add the "first and second legs which straddle the generator" limitation. Claims 11, 13, and 16–18 add further structure (lines intersecting at the centre of force; generator rotor within the blade rotor; resilient/articulated torque-transmitting first member). Any invalidity or non-infringement theory should be built on those specific issued limitations, not on the pre-amendment paragraph text — and a § 112 written-description/enablement attack on the "substantially exclusively" and "at or adjacent the rim" language is untested and therefore genuinely open.

Estoppel landscape. Clean. No IPR FWD, no PGR FWD, no CBM FWD → no § 315(e)(1) or § 315(e)(2) estoppel against anyone, and no In re Aqua Products / SAS record to work around. Conversely, there is also no petitioner-privity chain the patent owner could use offensively, and no defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, etc.) appears in the record as having petitioned on this number.

Pattern signals. The pattern here is a non-pattern: a small Norwegian technology company (Sway Turbine AS, Bergen; backed in part by Statoil New Energy, Inocean, Lyse) that developed a 10 MW "ST10" offshore machine with an integrated ring generator and ultimately did not commercialize at scale (see EFTA Surveillance Authority Case No. 70030 describing Sway as "a single purpose limited liability company dedicated to commercialising its 10 MW turbine"). Such portfolios almost never draw IPRs, because IPRs follow assertions, and assertions follow revenue. Sway never asserted this patent in any U.S. district court or ITC action that I could locate, and the asset was allowed to lapse on fee nonpayment in 2022. There is no patent-owner PTAB-appeal history to review (no FWD to appeal), and the "Cited By" record for this patent is essentially empty (one third-party citation, US 2014/0227095 A1, Minutin). There is no litigation summary conflict to flag: consistent with the prior Litigation section in this analysis, no litigation is known, and, consistently, no IPR derived from any such litigation.

Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant and hold a demand letter or complaint citing claim 1 (or any of claims 1–20):

1. Lead with the fee lapse, not the PTAB. Pull the Patent Center transaction history at https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/ for Application No. 13/639,677 and confirm (a) the 2021-12-06 maintenance-fee reminder, (b) the 2022-05-23 LAPS event, and (c) whether any petition to revive under 37 C.F.R. § 1.378 was filed and granted. The Google Patents legal-events record shows no revival event after the 2022-05-23 discontinuation. If there is no revival, ask the plaintiff to identify the statutory authority for a live claim; a patent that lapsed for fee nonpayment is treated as though it had never been granted as to causes of action accruing during the lapse, and § 41(c)(2) revival is conditioned on the delay being unintentional. The record gives no indication the subject matter has been reissued or reexamined.
2. If the plaintiff instead points you to a family member, do not assume it rides on '336. Re-run this exercise on each asserted number: US 8,729,721, US 9,194,373, US 9,500,178, and the '336 siblings from the same 2010-04-09 GB priority date (GB2479403A = GB1005917, and GB2479407A = GB1005942 — the two GB applications are the priority parents of the '336 family). Each has a distinct claim set and a distinct terminal-disclaimer/fee history.
3. If a live claim does exist (i.e., the lapse was cured, or you are somehow facing an earlier-accrued action), the defensive posture is unusually favorable for a § 102/§ 103 attack because no estoppel attaches, no panel has ever construed "first and second legs which straddle the generator," "at or adjacent the rim," or "substantially exclusively," and the patent's own Background section concedes a crowded field of rim-drive and direct-drive ring generators — in particular the concession that US 7,042,109 B2 (Gabrys) already taught an ironless ring-type direct-drive generator with blade forces communicated both to bearings and to the generator rotor, and with blade torque transmitted to the generator rotor. That is the single most promising § 103 anchor on the face of the reference list.
4. Terminal disclaimer / family check. The '336 patent's 20 claims overlap heavily with paragraph-defined aspects in the two GB priority documents. Check whether any GB/EU/other family grant contains claims materially identical to the U.S. issued claims, and check the U.S. file wrapper for any terminal disclaimer — it affects the effective patent term you are pricing.
5. Docket confirmation (do this before relying on the null result). Run each of: PTAB E2E / PTAB API for 8698336; PACER party search for "Sway Turbine AS" and "Innolith Assets" in all districts; CAFC docket search for 8,698,336; and the Unified Patents portal page for US-8698336-B2. If all four come back empty — and the Patent Center record shows no § 1.378 revival — the appropriate written conclusion is: "No AIA trial proceeding has ever been filed on U.S. 8,698,336, and the patent is expired for failure to pay maintenance fees effective 2022-04-15; there is no live U.S. claim to defend."

If you instead represent the patent owner or a prospective licensee: the absence of any IPR is the only favorable fact in the record. Expect a defendant's Fintiv-free, estoppel-free § 103 petition built on Gabrys (US 7,042,109) plus GB 1511948A1 and EP 1394406A2 to be institution-worthy on these claims, and note that the expired status means the only meaningful value left is in the foreign family (EP2556243B1 / CN103069156B / KR101761328B1 / JP6087276B2 / CA2795926C / AU2011237561B2), several of which are also recorded as expired or ceased.

Links

• Patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8698336/en
• Pre-grant publication: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20130115068A1/en
• Priority GBs: https://patents.google.com/patent/GB2479403A/en · https://patents.google.com/patent/GB2479407A/en
• PCT: https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2011124707A2/en
• Family member lapsed on fees (same family, different priority): https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9500178B2](/patent/US9500178B2)/en
• USPTO Patent Center (application 13/639,677): https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/
• PTAB E2E / Decisions search: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/ · https://developer.uspto.gov/ptab-api/
• CourtListener (patent number search): https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=%228698336%22
• Unified Patents portal: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-8698336-B2

Confidence: High that no AIA trial proceeding exists on US 8,698,336 (structured ODP data + corroborating searches). Medium-high that the patent is currently unenforceable due to the 2022-04-15 fee lapse (Google Patents legal-events record; not independently confirmed against the Patent Center transaction history, which I could not query directly). Unverified: any EPO opposition on EP2556243B1; the status of the sibling U.S. patents.

I'll verify the assignment record against USPTO Assignment Center and cross-reference sources.

Let me verify the corporate status of the assignee and check for any late-stage transfers.

Notable lead: an "INNOLITH ASSETS AG [CH]" appears as applicant on a Sway-related family member. Let me investigate whether it touched this patent's chain.

Assignment & Ownership Reconstruction — US 8,698,336 B2

Source note / limitation. My tool access for this task is web-index search only. I could not open a live, authenticated USPTO Assignment Center session or pull the underlying assignment document images (reel 029664/0936). The assignment data below comes from (a) the full patent text you supplied, (b) the Google Patents "Legal Events" and family tables, and (c) Espacenet/INPADOC applicant records for the sibling family members. Where a field (notably the correspondent of record) is not exposed by these sources, I say so rather than guess. Verify against Assignment Center by patent number 8698336 before relying on it.

Inventors

Patterns / caveats:

• All three inventors are Sway insiders — this is a founder-inventor patent, not a hired-gun filing. Borgen's name recurs across the whole Sway portfolio (US 8,729,721, US 9,500,178, etc.).
• The inventor→assignee assignment was executed ~2.7 years after the 2010 priority filing (execution dates 2013-01-03 to 2013-01-10, i.e. after the PCT and US national-stage entry). That late timing is consistent with the entity reorganization (Sway AS's turbine business was carved into Sway Turbine AS in 2010), not with a departure/abandonment pattern.
• Unusual-pattern test (all inventors leaving within 12 months of filing): not established — I could not date any inventor's departure from Sway; no such data surfaced. Flagged as unverified, not as present.

Original assignee

Sway Turbine AS, C. Sundts gate 51, 5004 Bergen, Norway (original and — per the US record — current assignee).

• Business: a single-purpose wind-turbine development company, spun out of Sway AS in 2010 to hold the turbine business. Developed a 10 MW direct-drive offshore wind turbine with a 145 m rotor; received NOK 137 million of Enova support (2010) plus Statoil New Energy / Inocean / Lyse backing.
• Did it ship a product embodying the claims? No. The 10 MW machine never reached commercial deployment. A prototype program was repeatedly announced (2010–2013) and the company pitched licensing/technology co-operation (e.g. at the 2013 Beijing wind exhibition) rather than selling turbines.
• Current status: Insolvent / dissolved. thewindpower.net lists Sway as "no longer exists (2019)"; Norwegian broadcaster NRK reported the company "gikk konkurs" (went bankrupt) after 13 years of development, having failed to attract private investors.
• Corporate context: sister company Sway AS handled the floating-tower side; Sway Turbine AS held the turbine IP. The two, and the estate, are the actors most relevant to any later dealing in this patent.

(Consistent with the prior "Patent summary" section, which also names Sway Turbine AS as original and current assignee — no contradiction.)

Assignment timeline

Recorded assignments on file for US 8,698,336: exactly one.

• Executed 2013-01-03 → 2013-01-10 / recorded 2013-01-21 — Reel 029664 / 0936
  • Conveyance: Assignment (of assignors' entire right, title and interest)
  • Assignor: BORGEN, EYSTEIN; CARRON, WILLIAM; WEST, MARK
  • Assignee: SWAY TURBINE AS, Norway
  • Correspondent: Not exposed in the records available to me. Google Patents' legal-events entry for reel 029664/0936 lists only the assignors, assignee and signing/recording dates. The recording correspondent (the attorney/firm that filed the recordation) is not retrievable from my sources and must be read off the Assignment Center entry or the assignment document itself. I will not name one.
  • Context: Initial inventor-to-company assignment — first recordation in the chain, capturing the founders' rights in the company that (post-2010 spin-out) owned the turbine IP. No consideration/fire-sale indicia in the record.

No US-recorded post-issuance assignment to any third party (NPE, aggregator, or otherwise) appears in the US file. The Google Patents legal-events list contains no transfer after 2013; the two later events are maintenance-fee events (2017-09-28 4th-year fee paid; 2021-12-06 reminder; 2022-05-23 lapse, effective 2022-04-15).

Cross-reference flag — foreign siblings point to a possible additional owner

This is the one new finding the earlier sections did not contain, and it bears directly on the ownership chain:

• The AU counterpart of this exact family (AU 2011237561 B2, priority 2010-04-09) is listed on Google Patents' citation tables as "Innolith Assets Ag" (granted 2016-09-08) rather than Sway Turbine AS.
• INNOLITH ASSETS AG, Hirzbodenweg 95, 4052 Basel, Switzerland also appears as a co-applicant with Sway Turbine AS on Sway's later wind-turbine filings (e.g. EP 2 761 167 and EP 2 761 173, both filed 2012, "Sway Turbine AS and Innolith Assets AG"), and as sole/lead applicant on EP 2 337 953 B1 and AU 2009301109 B2/C1 (the 2008-priority sibling case, US 8,729,721).

Interpretation: Innolith Assets AG is a Swiss co-owner / IP-holding co-applicant in the wider Sway turbine portfolio from roughly the 2012–2013 period onward. However, I found no US-recorded assignment of US 8,698,336 to Innolith Assets AG, and Google Patents continues to show Sway Turbine AS as the US current assignee. So for this US patent the record stops at Sway Turbine AS, while the foreign equivalents show Innolith. This is a discrepancy worth resolving at Assignment Center / the national registers — it could be (i) a foreign-only re-registration of a common co-ownership that was simply never re-recorded with USPTO, or (ii) a transfer that post-dates the US record. I am flagging it as unresolved, not asserting a transfer.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8698336
    2010 : GB priority cases filed by Sway Turbine
    2011 : PCT and US national stage filed
    2013 : Inventors assign rights to Sway Turbine AS
         : US application published
    2014 : US patent granted
    2019 : Sway Turbine AS becomes insolvent
    2022 : US patent lapses for unpaid fees

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Verdict

Insufficient data.

The US chain consists of only the original assignment — inventors Borgen, Carron and West to Sway Turbine AS, executed 2013-01-03/10 and recorded 2013-01-21 at Reel 029664/0936 — with no subsequent US-recorded transfer and no assertion activity. The assignee is a genuine operating wind-turbine developer (not a shell), which went insolvent and let the patent lapse for non-payment effective 2022-04-15; the classic NPE markers (shell transfer, known asserter, cascading LLC hops, pre-suit transfer, defensive-aggregator terminus) are all absent. The one loose end — Innolith Assets AG, Basel, appearing as owner/co-owner on the foreign siblings of this family while the US record still shows Sway Turbine AS — is an ownership discrepancy to verify, not yet an NPE signal.

Verify at: USPTO Assignment Center — patent 8698336 (search by patent number; also mirrored at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html). Pull reel 029664/0936 for the correspondent of record, and check the AU 2011237561 / EP 2556243 registers to see when and how Innolith Assets AG acquired the parallel rights.

I'll research the cited prior-art references for US 8,698,336 and verify their details.

Let me research the remaining cited references.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 8,698,336 B2

Sourcing and scope note

I worked from the authoritative full text of US 8,698,336 B2 (Google Patents mirror of the USPTO record, https://patents.google.com/patent/US8698336/en) and cross‑checked the cited references via live web searches (Google Patents, EPO/PISE, FreePatentsOnline, USPTO-hosted PDFs). I did not have a logged-in PatentCenter/PTAB query, so where I assert something the web index does not show, I say so.

Identifier confirmed literally: US 8,698,336 B2, Wind turbine rotor and wind turbine, application 13/639,677, filed 2011‑04‑08, granted 2014‑04‑15, priority 2010‑04‑09 (GB 1005917.8 and GB 1005942.6), assignee Sway Turbine AS, inventors Eystein Borgen, William Carron, Mark West. I did not substitute any similar number (e.g., 8,698,336 is not 8,114,833 / 8,301,833 / 8,698,133).

Critical date: 2010‑04‑09. Application filed 2011‑04‑08, so pre‑AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)/(b)/(e) governs (the AIA first‑inventor‑to‑file provisions apply only to applications filed on/after 2013‑03‑16). § 102 anticipation requires all elements of a given claim in a single reference; references disclosing only subsets are § 103 (obviousness) material, not § 102 material. I flag that distinction per reference.

Key structural caveat: The granted patent has one independent claim (claim 1); claims 2–20 all depend. Claim 1 requires, in combination: (i) a shaft; (ii) plural blade arrangements each rotatable about the shaft with a blade; (iii) ≥2 axially spaced bearing arrangements; (iv) a direct‑drive generator with a stator rotationally fixed to the shaft and a generator rotor having a rim connected to both bearing arrangements; (v) both bearings transmitting radial forces from the generator rotor to the shaft and at least one separately transmitting bending moments; (vi) each blade arrangement connected to a point at/adjacent the rim to transmit torque directly to it; and (vii) each blade arrangement having first and second legs that straddle the generator. This combination is what any § 102 reference must meet.

A. The 15 examiner/patent citations of record

The record lists two overlapping citation tables — "Citations (14)" and "Patent Citations (15)" — the difference being EP 2147209 A1. Consolidated below.

B. Applicant-cited background art (in the specification, "by the applicant")

These appear in the description's background discussion and are relevant § 102(b) / §§ 102‑103 art even where not in the examiner citation table:

• WO 03/098034 A1 (Vestas Wind Systems A/S) — Wind turbine rotor construction.
• DE 10311025 A1 (Roland Mahler) — Wind power system….
• EP 0 058 791 A1 (Harold Winterbotham) — Electrical rotating machines.
• US 6,951,443 B1 (General Electric) — Wind turbine ring/shroud drive system.
• WO 02/099950 A1 — turbine whose rim is connected to a hub by tension members "like a spoked bicycle wheel," hub driven by an axially spaced blade arrangement. (Expressly discussed as the tension‑spoke/rim concept.)
• CA 2 626 5452 A1 (as printed) — "CA26265452A1" is reprinted literally in the specification and appears to be a typographical reference to a Canadian application on a direct‑drive turbine with blades fixed to an annulus connected to the hub by rods (the patent criticizes the annulus as heavy/expensive). I do not auto‑correct this identifier.
• DE 10255745 A1 (Hartmut Jörck) and US 6,285,090 B1 — direct‑drive arrangements.
• US 5,118,255 A, US 2,050,129 A (Aermotor — Wind wheel for windmills), DE 19606359 A1 (Helmut Maas — rotor holder‑support), US 2005/200134 A1, US 2008/124216 A1, EP 1 509 696, EP 1 944 504 (tower/fixing arrangements).

C. Non‑patent citations

• GB Search Report for GB 1005917.8, dated 2010‑09‑09 (2 pp.).
• GB Search Report for GB 1005942.6, dated 2010‑09‑09 (2 unnumbered pp.).
• International Search Report for PCT/EP2011/055554, dated 2012‑04‑12 (6 unnumbered pp.) — the search report for this very application; it is the source of the examiner's relevance assignments above.

D. Ranking of most relevant prior art

1. WO 2010/040829 A2 (Sway AS) — the single closest reference. It is drawn to substantially the same architecture (twin bearing members, axial‑force components to the bearings, torque to the rim generator ring, generator inside the blade rotor). It is the only citation that plausibly approaches § 102 anticipation of claim 1 (subject to the caveat below). Its US national‑stage counterpart and the related CA 2 739 999 C are in the same disclosure family (the present patent's CA counterpart is CA 2 795 926 C).
2. US 7,042,109 B2 (Gabrys) — best § 102/§ 103 art for the ironless direct‑drive ring generator and blades‑to‑bearings/generator‑rotor paths; expressly discussed in the patent's background.
3. EP 1 394 406 A2 (Klinger) — best art for blades mounted on the generator rotor ring with axially spaced bearings.
4. WO 2008/127114 A1 / EP 2 147 209 A1 (Sway AS) — large‑diameter ring/doughnut hub, axial forces to a center bearing, direct drive.
5. US 2008/0292467 A1 (Sway AS) — ring/hollow‑profile hub direct‑drive generator.
6. Remaining references (EP 1 657 437, EP 1 783 363, WO 2007/135391, US 2006/0251516, WO 1997/013979, WO 1986/002701, US 4,350,895, US 4,330,714, GB 1,511,948) — § 103 material for individual dependent‑claim features (pitch bearings, blade supports, bearings, generic HAWT structure) rather than § 102 anticipation of claim 1.

E. Important § 102 caveats to flag explicitly

• "By another" issue for the Sway‑family art. WO 2010/040829 A2 and US 2008/0292467 A1 share the same inventive entity (Borgen, Carron, West) as US 8,698,336. Under pre‑AIA § 102(e), a reference must be "by another"; where the inventive entity is identical, the reference may not qualify as § 102(e) prior art against this patent even though its filing (2009‑10‑09) precedes the 2010‑04‑09 priority. Its publication (2010‑04‑15) is also after the priority date, so it is not § 102(a)/(b) art. Net: WO 2010/040829 A2 is highly probative as the parent disclosure and for § 102 double‑patenting-type analysis, but its § 102 anticipation status against claim 1 is not clean and I cannot certify it from web records alone. This nuance did not appear in the earlier generated sections and is an addition, not a contradiction.
• No single reference found that anticipates the full claim‑1 combination. Every non‑Sway reference discloses only a subset (either the ring/direct‑drive generator, or the blade mounting, or the bearings), so § 102 anticipation of claim 1 is unlikely against them; they are § 103 art. Anticipation is most plausible only for narrow dependent claims (e.g., claim 3/15 pitch bearing; claim 10 pipe‑mounted races; claim 12/13 separate blade rotor with generator inside).
• Straddling limitation. Claim 1's "first and second legs which straddle the generator" (and claim 13's "generator rotor is within the blade rotor") is the feature most likely added to distinguish over the Sway parent (WO 2010/040829); references that do not show this geometry cannot anticipate claim 1 on their literal disclosure.
• Examiner vs applicant citations. Only the references surfaced in the examiner's ISR‑derived table carry an examiner relevance assignment; the background references (Section B) were cited by the applicant and are not per se anticipatory.
• I have not independently re‑verified each cited reference's full text against a logged‑in USPTO/EPO file; the descriptions and dates above come from Google Patents, EPO/PISE and FPO records, which I treat as current ground truth per the operating rules.

I'll ground the obviousness analysis in the prior-art references actually cited on this patent's page. Let me verify what the key references disclose.

Let me verify the remaining key references cited on the patent page (the annulus-rotor reference, the bicycle-wheel direct-drive generator, and bearing-arrangement art).

Two more targeted checks: the composite blade-support reference, and whether the EP sibling faced opposition (which would reveal the closest art).

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 8,698,336 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Building on the bibliographic, claim-overview and litigation sections already generated (which remain accurate as to the single independent claim 1, the 2010‑04‑09 priority, and the 2022‑04‑15 fee lapse). One minor refinement, not a contradiction: in the granted set, claims 2–18 depend directly on claim 1; claim 19 depends on claim 1; claim 20 depends on claim 19.

1. Governing framework

Statute. App. No. 13/639,677 was filed 2011‑04‑08 (PCT/EP2011/055554, § 371 national stage) and claims GB priority of 2010‑04‑09. It is therefore governed by pre‑AIA § 102/§ 103 (pre‑March 16, 2013 law), but the analysis is materially unchanged under KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), which controls the motivation‑to‑combine inquiry for both regimes.

Effective dates.

Because the patent's own earlier Sway family publications (WO 2008/127114 A1, published 2008‑10‑23; EP 2 147 209 A1, published 2010‑01‑27; US 2008/0292467 A1, published 2008‑11‑27) all predate 2010‑04‑08, they are § 102(b) statutory‑bar art. Critically, § 103(c) common ownership does not remove § 102(b) art — § 103(c) only disqualifies art under § 102(e)/(f)/(g). Sway Turbine's own earlier work is therefore fully available, and is the closest prior art.

Level of ordinary skill (proposed). A person with a B.S. in mechanical or electrical engineering and 3–5 years of experience in the design of large horizontal‑axis wind turbines and/or large-diameter direct‑drive electrical machines, or equivalent. The subject matter is structurally conventional (trusses, roller bearings, permanent‑magnet generators), so the skill level is moderate and the scope of the prior art is broad.

Claim construction posture. No litigation, no PTAB proceeding, and no court construction exists. Plain meaning per Phillips applies. Two claim‑1 phrases carry the entire validity weight and should be read literally (as the earlier summary correctly did):

• "transmit torque generated by the blade arrangement directly to the rim" — i.e., the torque path terminates at the generator rotor rim, not at a central shaft; and
• "first and second legs which straddle the generator" — i.e., the two legs of each blade arrangement lie on opposite axial sides of the generator.

Note that granted claim 1 does not recite "unsupported at radially outer ends" (dependent claim 9), "fixed pitch"/stall regulation, or "generator rotor within the blade rotor" (claims 12–13). Those limitations were dropped from claim 1 relative to description paragraph 1, which materially broadens claim 1 and strengthens any obviousness attack.

2. The prior art of record (from this page's Prior Art section)

Corrections/uncertainties I must flag rather than paper over:

1. "CA26265452A1." The specification literally recites this identifier. That 9‑digit string does not resolve to a wind‑turbine document in my searches; the closest family‑number match (CA 2,626,545) is unrelated subject matter ("Fabricating three‑dimensional annular fiber structures"). I therefore cannot verify the content of this reference, and I note the possibility that the identifier in the patent is itself erroneous. I do not auto‑correct it.
2. WO 2007/135391 A2 (EPL) — I was unable to retrieve its disclosure before my search budget was exhausted. I cite it only as a reference of record, not as a verified claim‑element mapping.
3. Companion validity risk (not a § 103 issue). Because WO 2010/040829 A2 contains essentially the same disclosure as the ʼ336 patent, a § 102(e)/derivation/obviousness‑type‑double‑patenting question arises against the applicant's own earlier PCT. Resolution turns on (a) whether the inventive entity is identical ("by another") and (b) § 103(c) common ownership (both are Sway AS). I cannot resolve this from the record retrieved; it is flagged, not asserted.

3. Ground 1 (primary): WO 2008/127114 A1 in view of EP 1 657 437 A1

Combination statement. It would have been obvious to modify the Sway ring‑hub direct‑drive turbine of WO 2008/127114 A1 by mounting the rotating assembly on two moment‑stiff, axially spaced bearings on the fixed shaft and feeding only blade torque to the generator rotor rim, as taught by EP 1 657 437 A1, because both references address the identical problem — maintaining a small, stable generator air gap in a multi‑megawatt direct‑drive machine despite rotor loads and structural deflection — and both expressly identify the same solution: isolate the driving torque while diverting all other forces and bending moments into bearings that react them to fixed structure.

Element mapping to granted claim 1:

Motivation, stated in the references themselves (strongest form of KSR evidence):

• WO 2008/127114 explains that with increasing rotor diameter a direct‑drive solution is desirable, but that "for direct‑drive windmills it is difficult with today's technology to control the air gap … which normally must be kept within ± a couple of mm, owing to deflections." It then proposes exactly the ʼ336 architecture: feed axial forces and bending moments into bearings and keep the generator load path separate (flexible shim plates of rubber at interface 112 so that "practically all the bending moments from the blades are absorbed by the doughnut hub").
• EP 1 657 437 states the design rule in terms: "forces and momentum from the wind turbine, except the driving torque, are absorbed by the turbine bearing," and explains the resilient torque member is used "to avoid unwanted forces from deformation of the wind turbine and generator to enter the generator bearing arrangement" — the very purpose recited in dependent claims 8 and 16.
• Both are in the same field of endeavour, address the same problem, and combine without any change in the references' principles of operation (In re Keller). No reference teaches away.

§ 102(b) anticipation note. If claim 1 is construed broadly on "legs … straddle the generator," WO 2008/127114 A1 (claims 13–17 read with the FIG. 5–7 embodiments) arguably discloses every element in a single reference, making a § 102(b) attack available as well. The "straddle" limitation is the only genuinely contestable mapping.

4. Ground 2 (alternative primary): US 7,042,109 (Gabrys) + EP 1 657 437 + WO 02/099950

• Gabrys supplies the direct‑drive architecture with an ironless armature in the air gap between two coaxial magnet‑carrying generator rotor yokes, the generator rotor fixed to the hub — i.e., the exact generator topology of the ʼ336 specification's FIGS. 2 and 7 (yokes 17/18, ironless coils 19, backing plates 24 bolted to yokes 23).
• WO 02/099950 supplies the large‑diameter rim‑in‑compression / tension‑member open frame in which torque and axial forces are resisted by tensioned spokes — the structural analogue of the ʼ336's "space frame" A‑frames 11/12 and 15/16, and the source of the "bearing members are rotatably mounted on a fixed shaft to which the stator is rotationally fixed" teaching.
• EP 1 657 437 supplies the load‑path split and the moment‑stiff, axially spaced bearing pair.

Motivation. Explicitly recited in Gabrys: a double rotor topology "eliminates rotor to stator magnetic attraction," so "the generator structure can therefore be constructed substantially less rigid and also much lighter in weight," which "facilitates fabrication, transportation and installation." That is precisely the design rationale the ʼ336 patent states for itself (§ column: "Manufacture of components, transportation to site, and assembly … easier and cheaper"). A POSITA seeking to scale to multi‑megawatt offshore machines — the stated market pressure — would combine Gabrys' air‑core ring generator, WO 02/099950's weight‑optimised open frame and EP 1 657 437's dedicated moment‑carrying bearing pair as a predictable combination of known elements yielding predictable results, and at most as an "obvious to try" selection among a finite, identified set of solutions.

5. Ground 3: the applicant's own admissions as prior art

Under In re Fout and In re Nomiya, statements in the specification about what was known are admissions usable as prior art irrespective of § 102(b). The ʼ336 specification admits:

• blades fixed to a hub driving a generator via a shaft (WO 03/098034, DE 10311025, US 2006/0251516, EP 0058791, US 6,951,443);
• direct‑drive generators (DE 10255745, US 6,285,090);
• a rotor rim connected to a hub by tension members "to resemble a spoked bicycle wheel" (WO 02/099950);
• blades fixed to an annulus which is connected to a hub by rods extending radially and disposed in a common plane perpendicular to the axis (the "CA26265452A1" passage) — i.e., an annulus/rim‑carried rotor with the blade forces resolved at the annulus; and
• the Gabrys arrangement in which "the blades extend within a rotor hub to the hub bearings and a generator rotor is fixed to the hub."

These admissions collapse much of the alleged distance between claim 1 and the art: rims, annuli, tension spokes and blades resolving loads into a rim were all acknowledged as known.

6. Dependent claims — compact obviousness assessment

Consequence: every dependent claim is, on this record, obvious for the same reasons as claim 1 plus the additional reference mapping shown. Claim 16 in particular is squarely met: EP 1 657 437 discloses a resilient torque‑only coupling whose stated purpose is identical to the claim's recited purpose.

7. Rebuttal considerations and honest weaknesses

1. The "legs straddle the generator" limitation is the only hard mapping. The best fit (WO 2008/127114 claims 13–16) requires reading the two angled sets of support members as the "legs" of a blade arrangement. That reading is supportable but not airtight, because in that reference the magnets may be carried on those same members rather than the members lying on opposite sides of a separate generator. A validity challenge would be strongest if the claim were construed to require the generator to be located axially between the two legs of each blade arrangement — which the ʼ336 figures do show (legs 11, 12 straddling the generator 9/10, with the separate legs 15, 16 carrying the generator rotor rim). This is the limitation most likely to survive challenge in a well‑argued defence.
2. WO 02/099950 says blades are "not mounted on the tension members." A patentee might characterise that as teaching away. It does not: the statement distinguishes that reference's rotor from a combined blade‑plus‑generator wheel; it says nothing discouraging the ʼ336 architecture, and indeed a POSITA reading it would take the opposite lesson — keep the blade support and the generator support structurally distinct but torque‑coupled, which is exactly claims 1/12/13.
3. The specification criticises the annulus art. The ʼ336 criticises the annulus‑carrying rotor (heavy, expensive 3.5 m‑section annulus). Under KSR, criticism of an alternative does not by itself establish non‑obviousness of a different structural solution, especially where the criticism is cost/weight‑based and the ʼ336's own answer (space‑frame A‑frames) is a recognised weight‑minimisation technique already in WO 02/099950.
4. Secondary considerations. I have no evidence in this record of commercial success, long‑felt need, failure of others, copying, or industry praise tied to the claimed subject matter, and no admissible nexus evidence. The claimed advantages (light, easily manufactured/transported) are the ordinary design objectives recited in the art itself, and the patent lapsed for non‑payment in 2022 with no known commercial deployment of the claimed turbine, so objective indicia appear weak or absent. Any non‑obviousness argument would have to rest on the structural topology alone.
5. Verification gaps. The CA "CA26265452A1" reference could not be verified; WO 2007/135391 A2 could not be retrieved; and I could not check whether EP 2 556 243 B1 (the active EP sibling) was opposed in the EPO — an EPO opposition file, if one exists, would be the single richest source of a tested obviousness case for this family and should be checked before relying on this analysis for any adversarial purpose.

8. Bottom line

On the record of this patent's own Prior Art section, granted claim 1 is very likely obvious under pre‑AIA § 103(a) over WO 2008/127114 A1 in view of EP 1 657 437 A1 — Sway's own earlier ring‑hub direct‑drive turbine (which already places the generator at a large‑diameter rim, reacts rotor loads into spaced‑apart bearings on the fixed central structure, and takes torque "directly … without passing via a central shaft"), combined with Ägir Konsult's express teaching that all forces and moments other than driving torque should be absorbed by a dedicated, axially spaced, moment‑stiff turbine bearing arrangement while torque alone reaches the generator rotor through a resilient coupling. US 7,042,109 (Gabrys) and WO 02/099950 A1 supply the ironless double‑yoke ring generator and the rim‑in‑compression/tension‑member open frame respectively, reinforcing a second, parallel ground. Every dependent claim adds nothing beyond the same references plus routine mechanical expedients (bearings in a pipe; blade‑root plate behind the pitch bearing; strut orientation along the resultant force line) — several of which the specification itself concedes to be conventional. The only genuinely contestable limitation is claim 1's "legs which straddle the generator," and even that is met on a reasonable reading of WO 2008/127114's two angled sets of generator‑carrying support members; the caveats in § 7.5, the unverified "CA26265452A1" citation, and the unresolved same‑family § 102(e)/ODP question involving WO 2010/040829 A2 should be resolved before this conclusion is relied on competitively.