insofar as their climbing machine is concerned, all there is, is a patent APPLICATION.
There's a rather large difference between an awarded patent and a patent application.
52%
According to the most recent statistics from the USPTO, approximately 52% of all patents filed in the U.S are approved. In 2015, 629,647 patent applications were filed and 325,979 were approved. The number of patent applications continues to increase ever-so-slightly every year.