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It's clearly not a patent issue, since tensioned UD fibre has been used by plenty of people other than Lightweight, it's just rank stupidity on the part of Madfiber (clue is in the name). All the fibres at right angles to the tensile load are contributing precisely nothing to the strength of the spoke, and are probably increasing the probability that a crack in an edge will propagate across the full width of the spoke.

From what I understood the spokes are cross-directionally laminated (5 layers) which would irradicate any grain issues similar to plywood construction. The old Kevlar wheeldiscs used strands going in load direction, but I think the problem then becomes torsional stiffness which is why they used so many spokes.