Yiwu, a county-level city in Jinhua, Zhejiang province, has seen a significant boost in intellectual property activities.
In the first two months of this year, Yiwu registered 439 new customs records for proprietary intellectual property, a year-on-year rise of over 76 percent — accounting for nearly 40 percent of the province's total growth. Exports of self-owned brands also surged by more than 70 percent.
These achievements are supported by innovative intellectual property protection systems and targeted services, enabling Yiwu's small-commodity sector to expand globally.
Supported by the Yiwu platform of the National Overseas Intellectual Property Dispute Response and Guidance Center, Yiwu has set up overseas service stations in cities like Dubai, Frankfurt, and Manila. By monitoring overseas trademark squatting and enhancing cross-border e-commerce rights protection, these efforts have saved companies over 60 million yuan ($8.68 million).
Merchants in Yiwu benefit from the efficiency of local trademark registration, which now takes just 10 minutes, compared with the previous processing time of about one week when materials had to be sent to Beijing. This convenience stems from Yiwu's national-level intellectual property protection service center, which offers comprehensive services like an intellectual property supermarket.
Additionally, Yiwu has established Zhejiang's first county-level professional platform for intellectual property dispute mediation. This platform has resolved over 20,000 disputes, involving more than 2.5 billion yuan, and reduced case processing times by half.
Yu Hangtian, head of the intellectual property development and supervision department of Yiwu's market supervision administration, said, "We have made it possible to handle intellectual property transactions entirely within Yiwu." The city's total number of effective trademark registrations now exceeds 230,000, ranking first among all county-level cities in China.
