Intangible cultural heritage represents a precious cultural asset of the vast Gansu region and serves as a vital resource for cultivating distinctive industries, strengthening county economies, and fostering high-quality development. The Regulations on the Promotion and Protection of Intellectual Property in Gansu Province explicitly emphasize the need to reinforce the protection and application of intellectual property rights across fields such as time-honored brands, traditional craftsmanship, traditional Chinese medicine, intangible cultural heritage, and folk literary and artistic works. Establishing a robust IP protection framework for intangible heritage is not merely about preserving cultural relics in a static manner; it is about leveraging institutional safeguards to drive the dynamic utilization of cultural resources, cultivate new momentum for the growth of regional intangible heritage, and inject distinctive industrial strength into the province's efforts to build a culturally strong province.

Gansu stands out as a province rich in intangible cultural heritage, with a multitude of traditional crafts deeply rooted in urban and rural communities, evolving into a "fingertip economy" that generates employment and boosts local incomes. For example, the nationally recognized geographical indication product "Qingyang Sachets" has pioneered a development model centered on "leading enterprises plus heritage workshops plus farming households," with products reaching markets in more than twenty countries and regions. Heritage projects such as the Tao inkstone carving technique, the Huanxian Daoqing shadow puppetry, and Linxia brick carving have continually expanded their market presence through the establishment of heritage workshops, festival exhibitions, and e-commerce livestreaming, playing an increasingly important role in enriching cultural tourism offerings and advancing county-level development initiatives. Practice has demonstrated that only by organically combining resource preservation with market development can intangible heritage transform from static cultural symbols into effective vehicles for growth.

Empowering the advancement of intangible heritage through the protection and application of intellectual property requires adhering to a principle of protection-first, dynamic utilization, balancing the preservation of cultural traditions with industrial innovation, and driving a transition from static preservation to living inheritance and industrialized growth, thereby genuinely converting cultural resources into developmental advantages. It is essential to strengthen the foundation of legal safeguards and build a collaborative protection framework for heritage-related intellectual property. By implementing the provincial regulations as a key lever, a multi-departmental coordination mechanism involving cultural tourism, market regulation, and judicial bodies should be improved, alongside a comprehensive, full-chain intellectual property protection system. For heritage projects with higher marketization levels, risk prevention against infringement should be intensified in areas such as e-commerce platforms, exhibition activities, and foreign trade interactions; intellectual property liaison services should be established to legally address counterfeiting of geographical indications and unauthorized use of original achievements by representative inheritors, thereby safeguarding their legitimate rights and those of business operators. Regular legal education campaigns on intellectual property should be conducted for representative inheritors and heritage workshops, guiding practitioners to strengthen their awareness of IP protection.

Utilizing intellectual property tools effectively can facilitate the conversion of existing cultural resources into industrial economic gains. Efforts should focus on revitalizing existing assets while cultivating new increments, fully leveraging the role of institutional mechanisms such as trademarks, copyrights, and geographical indications. Heritage business entities should be guided to register copyrights for original designs and nurture regional public brands. A comprehensive database of heritage resources should be established, with thorough evaluation and feasibility studies, to support the ongoing application for trademarks and geographical indications for traditional crafts with industrial potential, while standardizing the management of collective and certification marks. The deep integration of the digital economy with the real economy should be promoted through the development of digital cultural and creative products, intellectual property-derived merchandise, and immersive experiential consumption scenarios, thereby expanding both online and offline consumer spaces for heritage offerings. Leading enterprises should be encouraged to play a driving role, integrating scattered workshops and representative inheritors through unified product standards, unified brand operations, and unified market promotion, extending the industrial chain and ensuring stable employment and income growth for local communities.

Concentrating efforts on nurturing business entities is crucial for addressing shortcomings in industrial innovation and talent support. Heritage cultural and creative enterprises and traditional craft businesses should be incorporated into the province's distinctive industry support programs, with preferential treatment in project applications, entrepreneurship incubation, and financial services, fostering a cohort of business entities that combine cultural depth with market competitiveness. To tackle the challenge of a shortage of composite talent, it is necessary to both preserve the technical achievements of senior representative inheritors and intensify efforts to attract and cultivate new talent. Support should be given to higher education institutions and cultural and creative enterprises to jointly establish research and training platforms, purposefully developing a young workforce skilled in craftsmanship, knowledgeable about intellectual property, and adept at business operations, thereby overcoming the current dilemma of prioritizing skills over management. Outstanding heritage industry business entities should be supported in participating in various foreign trade and cultural exchange activities, promoting more regional heritage products to reach national and international markets.

Anchoring the direction of high-quality development, the integration of heritage growth into the province's broader modernization of its industrial system is essential. Cultivating new momentum for regional intangible heritage is not a matter of simplistic commercial exploitation, but rather a concrete practice of developing new productive forces tailored to local conditions and an integral component of building a modern industrial system that reflects Gansu's distinctive characteristics. Aligned with the province's cultural strengthening and county development strategies, the construction of heritage workshops should be leveraged to invigorate rural specialty economies. It is imperative to resolutely reject overly commercialized and indiscriminate replication-driven development models, instead insisting on a balance between effective quality improvement and reasonable quantity growth, preserving the core essence of heritage while unlocking its economic and social value, and achieving a win-win outcome for both preservation and development.