The construction of a unified national market hinges on dismantling regional barriers, upholding fair competition, and ensuring the free flow of goods and factors. Judicial protection of intellectual property rights serves as a crucial legal cornerstone for regulating market order, nurturing high-quality brands, and invigorating the development of distinctive local industries. Committed to serving high-quality economic and social development, the Jiaozuo procuratorial organs have deepened their comprehensive performance of duties in intellectual property prosecution. They focus on the pain points in protecting local geographical indication resources and the blockages in industrial development, employing legal, systematic, and long-term governance measures to safeguard the standardized, market-oriented, and nationwide expansion of local specialty brands.

Among Jiaozuo's many prestigious local brands, the "Wen County Iron Stick Yam," with its 3,000-year cultivation history and holding three national geographical indication certifications, stands out as a distinctive agricultural name card that boosts farmers' income, empowers rural revitalization, and enjoys national renown. However, as the brand's popularity has grown, various infringements have proliferated, including rampant cross-regional counterfeiting, indiscriminate misuse of geographical indication logos, deceptive marketing on e-commerce platforms misleading consumers, and illegal production and circulation of counterfeit packaging. This chaotic market environment not only squeezes the survival space of legitimate businesses and harms consumer rights but also creates regional market circulation barriers, hindering the industry's scaling, branding, and national expansion.

Confronting these industrial pain points and market regulation challenges head-on, the Jiaozuo procuratorial organs precisely launched a legal defense for the local brand. When market chaos constrained industrial development and public appeals demanded a response, upon receiving a representative suggestion forwarded by the Wen County People's Congress Standing Committee regarding breaking the development bottleneck of the Wen County Iron Stick Yam industry, the procuratorate swiftly transformed this public concern into a supervision lead. Leveraging a bidirectional conversion mechanism between people's congress suggestions and procuratorial recommendations, they sprang into action, comprehensively fulfilling their duties. By integrating public interest litigation with intellectual property prosecution functions, they initiated an end-to-end supervision, rectification, and systematic governance effort.

Public sentiment guides action, and market chaos provides the entry point for intervention. To understand the true extent of infringement and devise precise, root-cause solutions, the case-handling team conducted extensive investigations across planting bases, agricultural markets, and online e-commerce platforms. They verified multiple illegal activities, including unauthorized use of geographical indications, malicious online store traffic diversion, and illegal packaging production. After comprehensively assessing the harm of market chaos, industrial development needs, and public demands, the procuratorate lawfully initiated an administrative public interest litigation case. They innovated a combined model of using public interest litigation to address disorder and intellectual property protection to solidify the foundation, working in tandem to build a robust brand protection line.

Targeting prominent market issues, the procuratorate acted with precision and force, issuing pre-litigation procuratorial recommendations to urge relevant functional departments to launch integrated online and offline special rectification campaigns. Law enforcement authorities confiscated over 300 batches of counterfeit geographical indication yam products, supervised 31 business entities in standardizing their logo usage, oversaw the removal of 129 infringing links by 9 online stores, and ensured compliance rectifications by multiple packaging companies and live-streaming rooms, effectively cleansing the specialty agricultural product market.

Addressing symptoms while tackling root causes ensures lasting stability. The procuratorate collaborated with industry regulators and associations to issue cooperation guidelines, establishing a unified anti-counterfeiting traceability platform. This platform provides authentic products with a unique "electronic ID card," leaving no place for fakes to hide. Extending from individual case handling to industry-wide governance, the research report generated from this case was incorporated into the Jiaozuo City Regulations on the Protection and Development of the Four Major Huai Medicines, solidifying governance outcomes through local legislation and achieving a leap from case supervision to legislative protection. This case was successfully selected as a 2026 National Procuratorial Organs Intellectual Property Protection Exemplary Case, becoming a vivid model of "People's Congress + Procuratorate" collaborative brand protection.

The legal defense and brand breakthrough of the Iron Stick Yam is a microcosm of the Jiaozuo procuratorial organs' deep commitment to intellectual property protection and their proactive integration into serving the construction of a unified national market. Since the establishment of the Municipal Procuratorate's Intellectual Property Office in 2022, the city's procuratorial organs have thoroughly implemented the Party Central Committee's decisions on strengthening IP protection and integrating into the unified national market. Upholding the principles of "strict protection, comprehensive protection, rapid protection, and equal protection," they coordinate the comprehensive performance of duties across criminal, civil, administrative, and public interest litigation prosecution. They consistently focus on eliminating local protectionism, combating cross-regional infringement, and maintaining fair competition, continuously strengthening the judicial protection network for intellectual property.

To date, citywide procuratorial organs have approved the arrest of 30 suspects in 18 cases of IP infringement crimes, prosecuted 112 individuals in 51 cases, and provided early intervention in the investigation of 20 major and complex cases, persistently severing cross-regional counterfeit production and sales grey/black industrial chains end-to-end.

To protect local brands in the broader market, breaking regional barriers is paramount. In guiding local brands to expand nationally, the Jiaozuo procuratorial organs proactively tackled numerous challenges, including cross-regional evidence collection and jurisdictional disputes. Bo'ai County, known as the "Hometown of Chinese Washcloth Fabric," sees its local enterprises' products sold globally. However, the "Yu Hu" bath scrubber trademark faced difficulties in cross-regional rights protection, with disputes over its validity due to classification gaps repeatedly hindering the company's development. Adhering to the principle of fair protection and resisting local protectionist tendencies, the procuratorate clarified case jurisdiction according to law and proactively corresponded with the National Intellectual Property Administration to confirm the trademark's nationwide legal effect. This ultimately facilitated a cross-province settlement between the parties, recovering over 1.6 million yuan in economic losses for the enterprise.

For infringement cases concerning counterfeit refined oil and fake agricultural supplies circulating cross-regionally, which impact people's livelihoods, the procuratorate meticulously pieced together evidence chains from financial flows and transaction documents, successfully concluding several typical cases that effectively cleansed the national consumer goods and agricultural supply circulation markets.

While rigorously punishing infringement crimes, the Jiaozuo procuratorial organs consistently adhere to the criminal justice policy of tempering justice with mercy. They carefully distinguish between criminal and non-criminal acts, and between corporate and individual crimes, resolutely preventing the scenario where "handling a case leads to the collapse of an enterprise." Flexible justice to resolve conflicts and precise duty performance to protect operations have become distinctive features of Jiaozuo's IP protection work. In handling a case involving counterfeit lubricant registered trademarks, the Shanyang District Procuratorate accurately identified the legitimate business entity and lawfully decided against arrest, safeguarding normal production and operation. The Xiuwu County Procuratorate concluded the city's first criminal incidental civil litigation case in IP, achieving full compensation through legal interpretation and mediation, substantially resolving the dispute.

A single tree does not make a forest; collaborative governance ensures steady progress. To continuously optimize the IP protection landscape, the Jiaozuo procuratorial organs moved beyond isolated efforts, focusing on building a "Procuratorate + N" collaborative protection matrix. Internally, they refined the working mechanism where centralized jurisdiction courts lead and grassroots courts coordinate, with grassroots courts fully participating in civil, administrative, and public interest litigation cases to maximize local judicial effectiveness. Externally, they deepened government-procuratorate coordination and procuratorate-police collaboration, jointly signing multiple cooperation documents with market regulation, public security, and other departments. They improved systems for case transfer, joint law enforcement, and reverse case referrals, smoothing the channels between administrative enforcement and judicial procedures, thereby fostering a fertile legal environment for the healthy and orderly operation of the market.

Strong brands lead to strong industries; open markets fuel prosperous development. Strengthening end-to-end intellectual property protection to guide specialty brands steadily forward is an essential requirement for integrating into and serving the unified national market and for fostering new quality productive forces. From protecting an Iron Stick Yam to guiding more local brands nationwide, from individual case handling to systematic governance and legislative protection, the Jiaozuo procuratorial organs will continue to focus on the development needs of local "original," "time-honored," and "new" brands. They will vigorously carry out the "Yu Zhi Brand Journey" special campaign, strengthen judicial protection in areas like geographical indications and intangible cultural heritage, persistently dismantle market barriers, uphold fair competition, and safeguard local specialty brands, contributing solid procuratorial strength to cultivating new quality productive forces and promoting the high-quality economic development of Jiaozuo.