Substantive-prepositional syntagmas in the English text of the patent are chosen as the subject of research. We set the task of determine to what extent this type of syntagmatics is typical for the chosen genre and present a typological description of structures based on the N+of+N core model. The relevance of the tasks set is determined by the insufficient knowledge of the categorical, linguistic and discursive features of such structures in English speech in general and in the texts of patent documentation in particular. The basis of the empirical research, carried out on the material of two corpora of texts, is the methods of syntagmatic, constructive, comparative and statistical analysis. The frequency of substantive-prepositional syntagmas in comparison with other types of compound nominative units and individual features that distinguish prepositional combinations from lexical syntagmas have been established. Design features of syntagmas are revealed; the syntactic processes of distribution of simple structures are described, the most significant of which are development, expansion, accession; the specifics of the implementation in these processes of such methods of distribution as lexical and syntactic, allied and non-union, adjective and substantive are determined. The obtained results supplement the information about syntagmatics as a sign of the genre and style of the text. They can serve as a basis for further research in the field of syntagmatics of English speech and find application in teaching English for professional purposes, as well as in a comparative analysis of original and parallel texts in Russian.