China's commercial space industry has developed rapidly in recent years, becoming a significant growth engine within the country's strategic emerging sectors. Against this backdrop, Shandong Province is actively positioning itself to accelerate the establishment of a new high-quality development hub for commercial space with national influence. Yantai City, as the core area for the development of a full industrial chain in commercial space within Shandong, is seizing opportunities by focusing on technological innovation, scenario expansion, and industrial chain collaboration to propel the commercial space sector toward broader horizons.

The journey to the stars relies on the solid support of intellectual property rights. From contributing to the successful maiden flight of the "Gravity-1," the world's largest solid-fuel carrier rocket, to safeguarding the patent portfolio for sea-based rocket launch technologies, the Yantai Intellectual Property Protection Center is embarking on a new mission to protect the city's "space chain" initiatives. The center is fully implementing a project to strengthen intellectual property within industrial chains, providing precise support to over 30 aerospace enterprises. It has facilitated the rapid grant of more than 500 patents through pre-examination services, aiding in the construction of an integrated commercial space industry system encompassing satellites in space, rockets on land, vessels at sea, and networks in the air. This effort is accelerating the formation of new competitive advantages for Yantai's commercial space industrial chain.

In strategic planning, the Yantai Center promptly initiated the "Aerospace Industry Patent Navigation" project. This project analyzes Yantai's patent reserves, layout characteristics, and research directions in the aerospace sector from a global perspective, providing decision-making support for industrial investment and project establishment. With the center's assistance, Oriental Space Technology (Shandong) Co., Ltd. successfully established a provincial-level project for "Patent Navigation of Sea Launch Service Support Technology for Carrier Rockets," focusing on key technologies such as rocket attitude control separation and bundled structure design.

During the patent pre-examination phase, the Yantai Center actively responded to the innovation needs of the Shandong Technological Innovation Center for Maritime Aerospace Equipment. It assisted in precise patent布局 for equipment supporting sea-based rocket launches, provided patent application advice for China's first professional sea launch vessel and its "horizontal + vertical" satellite-rocket docking facility, and offered batch pre-examination services. These efforts led to the grant of six invention patents through batch pre-examination, with transformation and implementation value nearing 10 million yuan. The center also enhanced provincial-municipal collaboration by partnering with the Shandong Protection Center to form a professional team. They tailored a service plan for Academician Li Deren's workstation, helping his team quickly obtain grants for over 10 invention patents related to medium-large carrier rocket technologies. This supported breakthroughs in key core technologies such as overall design of large solid bundled rockets and high-precision orbit insertion and control technologies for these rockets.

In terms of链上 services, the Yantai Center deepened the "Assistant Enterprise Climb" examiner tour activity in Qilu, jointly stationing examiners from the Patent Examination Cooperation Henan Center of the CNIPA at leading aerospace enterprises. Leveraging data advantages and examination experience, they accurately identified weaknesses in corporate intellectual property management. For instance, with Oriental Blue Sky Titanium Gold Technology Co., Ltd., the center helped overcome challenges in identifying innovation points for simple-structured fastener products, uncovering more than 20 patentable innovations and boosting the company's invention patent grants by 35%. Additionally, the center conducted multiple thematic training sessions for industrial chain enterprises on patent mining, patent information analysis, and responding to patent examination opinions. It guided companies in establishing a full-process management system from innovation discovery and patent application to risk control, providing strong support for extending, supplementing, and strengthening the commercial space industrial chain. Presently, key supporting products like high-performance fasteners from Oriental Blue Sky Titanium Gold Technology are widely used in the aerospace sector, demonstrating Yantai's manufacturing strength in aerospace supporting fields.

The vast sky holds boundless opportunities. Shandong Province's "Several Measures to Accelerate High-Quality Development of the Commercial Space Industry" explicitly calls for "supporting Yantai to focus on the Oriental Space Port, building it into the core area for the full industrial chain development of commercial space in Shandong, and leading the province's commercial space industry development." Currently, Yantai is concentrating efforts to create a distinctive domestic commercial space industry cluster, aiming to achieve a leap from "launch leadership" to "full-chain advancement" during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period. Facing this new mission, the Yantai Protection Center will adhere to the principle of "building services on the industrial chain," providing precise support for the entire aerospace manufacturing chain, offering full-cycle assistance, strengthening source protection of intellectual property, and continuously enhancing the "Zhi Fu Bao" service brand. In the practice of "asking the sea to reach the sky," the center will contribute intellectual property strength to help Yantai write a magnificent chapter in space exploration.