Two announcements this year have energized residents of Taiyuan, Shanxi. The China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) released the list of pilot cities for the 2025-2027 National Intellectual Property Powerhouse Construction initiative, with Taiyuan selected as one of 10 cities for the demonstration phase. Almost simultaneously, the results of the 26th China Patent Award were announced, with Shanxi Jinbo Bio-Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. winning the Gold Patent Award for its "Polypeptide, Production Method, and Use," marking Shanxi Province's first-ever Gold Patent Award.

In recent years, the Taiyuan Municipal Market Supervision Administration (Intellectual Property Office) has focused on building a strong IP city. It has systematically developed a comprehensive IP chain, emphasizing strategic planning and foundational strength. This has created a development path for Taiyuan's IP that features a more robust system, stronger protection, more efficient transformation, and more impressive results. The city has driven a qualitative leap from quantitative accumulation, successfully completing a dual breakthrough: from pilot exploration to demonstration leadership, and from a Silver Patent Award to a Gold Patent Award.

From Pilot to Demonstration: Top-Level Design Drives a Leap in Capability

Through top-level planning and high-level promotion, Taiyuan has established an inter-ministerial joint conference system for building a strong IP city. The 28 member units coordinate with clear responsibilities, forming a unified framework for the city's IP work. Simultaneously, substantive progress has been made in the legislative process for the "Taiyuan Intellectual Property Protection and Promotion Regulations (Draft)," filling a gap in systematic local IP legislation in the province. Seizing opportunities from the national IP reform layout, Taiyuan has been approved as a key city for the National IP Operation Service System, a pilot city for the National IP Powerhouse Construction, and a pilot city for public service standardization. All pilot tasks have been completed on time and with high quality, accumulating solid institutional experience and a working foundation for Taiyuan to become a demonstration city.

Taiyuan's successful inclusion in the list of pilot cities for the National IP Powerhouse Construction demonstration phase, making it one of 10 cities nationwide, signifies that the city's IP governance capabilities, service levels, and innovation environment have officially entered the national advanced ranks. This marks an upgrade from pilot exploration to a demonstration benchmark.

From Silver to Gold: Deepening Innovation Achieves a First Breakthrough

In recent years, Taiyuan has continuously focused on cultivating high-value patents, tackling core technologies, and nurturing innovation entities in a tiered manner. The city's core IP indicators have seen leapfrog growth. The number of valid invention patents and registered trademarks has expanded significantly, and the number of high-value invention patents per 10,000 people has doubled. The foundation for IP innovation has become increasingly solid, accumulating strong momentum for the city's innovative development.

Data shows that from 2020 to 2025, the number of valid registered trademarks in Taiyuan increased from 78,960 to 144,729, and the number of valid invention patents grew from 11,162 to 26,472. The number of high-value invention patents per 10,000 people rose from 6.5 to 15.46. The number of patent transfers and licenses increased from 1,685 to 2,740, and the amount of IP pledge financing jumped from 92 million yuan to over 700 million yuan.

It is on this solid foundation that Taiyuan achieved its first China Patent Silver Award and its first China Patent Gold Award. The Taiyuan-based company Shanxi Jinbo Bio-Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. won the 26th China Patent Gold Award, filling a gap for this award in the province. This strongly validates the city's long-term efforts in cultivating high-value patents, empowering enterprise original innovation, and improving full-chain protection services.

From a single award breakthrough to a cluster of high-end achievements, from individual enterprise innovation to collective industrial innovation, Taiyuan's IP has become a core strength enabling industrial upgrading, supporting transformation and development, and fostering core competitiveness.

From Foundation to Maturity: Multi-Pronged Measures to Enhance Chain Efficiency

Focusing on systematic empowerment and full-chain quality improvement, Taiyuan has centered on the complete chain of creation, utilization, protection, management, and service. It continuously addresses weaknesses, strengthens areas of deficiency, and enhances capabilities, comprehensively building an IP development system suited to the development of modern industries.

On the innovation creation front, Taiyuan has promoted the formation of the Shanxi Synthetic Biology Industry IP Innovation Consortium, precisely serving key core technology breakthroughs. At the same time, it continues to regulate innovation order, cracking down on abnormal patent applications and malicious trademark registration and hoarding, allowing truly valuable technological achievements to stand out.

On the results utilization front, Taiyuan has innovatively implemented an "equity investment + market operation" model. It has established the province's first batch of industrial IP operation centers, with the Shanxi Synthetic Biology Industry IP Operation Center being recognized as a national-level first. This represents a leap from provincial to national-level operational platforms. A "3 Alls" transformation work method has been implemented: all universities and research institutes holding patents have been visited, all existing patents have been included in a dynamic inventory database, and all high-value invention patents have been promoted and matched. An IP fund has been established to effectively solve the problems of difficult patent transformation and difficult financing for scientific innovation, continuously activating the value of intangible assets.

On the rights protection front, Taiyuan has established a multi-level rights protection and assistance system. It has set up the province's only overseas IP dispute response guidance workstation. The city has also innovatively optimized the patent dispute adjudication mechanism, significantly shortening case processing times, and building a fast, efficient, and coordinated IP protection barrier.

On the public service front, relying on the province's first IP service industry cluster and the province's first integrated IP operation service platform, combined with a mechanism for dispatching IP specialists to provide on-the-ground services, Taiyuan has achieved precise and comprehensive delivery of IP services to enterprises, comprehensively strengthening the service foundation for innovative development.

The transition from pilot to demonstration represents a systematic upgrade of a city's IP governance capabilities. The leap from the Silver Award to the Gold Award marks a milestone in regional innovation strength. Standing at a new starting point, Taiyuan will take the National IP Powerhouse Construction demonstration as its primary driver. It will continue to improve the full IP chain system, deepen the integration of IP with key industrial chains, and amplify the core role of IP in empowering innovation, industry, and development. This will contribute "Taiyuan's strength" to the city's high-quality development and Shanxi's comprehensive transformation.