High-Quality Public Services Empower the Building of an Intellectual Property Powerhouse

2026 Intellectual Property System Public Service Work Conference Held in Beijing—

In Beijing in mid-autumn, fruits hang heavy on the branches. Recently, the 2026 Intellectual Property System Public Service Work Conference was held, bringing together representatives from IP systems across the country to review achievements and plan a new chapter.

“Intellectual property public services are an important support for building an IP powerhouse, an important lever for empowering scientific and technological innovation and fostering new quality productive forces, an important vehicle for promoting the transformation of innovation achievements into real productive forces, and an important safeguard for optimizing market order in the IP field. As the building of an IP powerhouse continues to advance, China’s IP public services have also made considerable progress,” said a relevant official of the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA). According to the official, in recent years, IP systems across the country have earnestly performed their duties and worked hard to ensure implementation, making the public service institutional system more robust, the service network more densely woven, the service philosophy more deeply rooted, the supply capacity stronger, and the collaborative framework broader, while the sense of gain and satisfaction of the public and innovation entities has continued to rise.

Systematization: Making Services Inclusive and Accessible
In recent years, IP systems across the country have anchored themselves to the principle of “convenience and benefit for the people,” weaving an ever-denser service network. At present, China has established 2,532 public service institutions at all levels and of all types, and 917 public service stations in science and technology parks, high-tech zones, and other areas, serving innovation entities more than 6 million times in total. Among them, the number of Technology and Innovation Support Centers (TISCs) jointly built by China and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has reached 202, accounting for about 11% of the global total, forming the world’s largest TISC network with the widest coverage and the richest service content. An IP service network covering provinces and cities and extending to the grassroots has been broadly deployed, and an inclusive and accessible service foundation has basically been completed.

While densifying the service network, institutional norms—the foundation of the public service system—have also been continuously consolidated. CNIPA formulated and issued a special plan for IP public services, and successively introduced policy documents on improving public service effectiveness and advancing standardization, normalization, and facilitation, promoting the formation of a policy system led by planning, supported by institutions, and with unified standards. Localities have also simultaneously improved promotion mechanisms, perfected supporting measures, and continuously strengthened full-cycle management of public service institutions to promote institutional quality improvement.

“Once institutions are built, the key is to use them in industries and apply them to enterprises,” said Xie Langtao, deputy director of the Hunan Provincial Intellectual Property Office. Hunan has adhered to equal emphasis on construction and management and promoted construction through application. The service institutions built at all levels and of all types focus on the needs of 12 key industrial chains, including construction machinery, making targeted efforts and operating in a coordinated manner. They have helped seven academician teams deploy more than 30 core patents, driving investment of more than 5 billion yuan; and cultivated more than 80 high-value patent portfolios for eight listed companies and 41 national-level specialized and sophisticated “little giant” enterprises.

Putting services into practice requires both meticulous cultivation in individual localities and concerted efforts among regions. The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region has strengthened coordinated services and achieved “cross-provincial handling” of public service items; the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has established a service cooperation mechanism and realized interconnection of service resources; Sichuan and Chongqing have created an IP public service consortium and promoted integrated cooperation... Under the overall deployment of CNIPA, localities have adhered to central-local coordination, departmental collaboration, institutional participation, and social co-construction, promoting public services from “tangible coverage” to “effective coverage.” The principle of “convenience and benefit for the people” has thus become more concrete and more perceptible.

Precision: Making Services Directly Meet Needs
Innovation entities are large in number and wide in scope, with vastly different needs. To promote public services directly reaching innovation entities, IP systems across the country have focused on both the “key minority” of strategic scientific and technological forces and the “vast majority” of small and medium-sized enterprises, striving to open up supply-demand matching channels and improve service quality and effectiveness.

For national strategic scientific and technological forces, services have advanced to the deepest reaches of R&D. According to statistics, IP systems across the country have provided full-chain services—from key scientific and technological research and high-value patent cultivation to achievement transformation—for 14 national laboratories and 26 leading science and technology enterprises in key industrial chains, helping innovation entities raise their R&D starting point and achieve technological breakthroughs.

For SMEs, a warm current of enterprise assistance and benefits continues to surge. In the past two years, CNIPA, together with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, has carried out actions to help and benefit enterprises, focusing on strengthening chains and improving efficiency in key industries, precisely matching service resources, and providing specialized and sophisticated enterprises and innovative SMEs with various services such as search and analysis, industry navigation, infringement early warning, overseas rights protection, and knowledge training, serving more than 50,000 enterprises in total.

Localities have also innovated service models based on the actual needs of local innovation entities, with distinctive practices flourishing. In Fujian, companion-style services fully support key core technology research, ensuring support for project initiation, navigation for R&D, guarantees for applications, and escort for transformation; in Ningxia, trusteeship services have taken root on the front lines of innovation, effectively addressing prominent problems such as weak IP management and insufficient application and transformation capabilities among SMEs; in Shandong, the “big service” concept has given rise to four major actions—helping enterprises climb, grow, sail far, and revitalizing Shandong with IP talent—which run through the full life cycle of enterprise growth. Related practices have been selected three times as typical cases in building an IP powerhouse...

Digital and Intelligent Services: Making Services Smart and Efficient
As a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation accelerates, emerging industries such as artificial intelligence (AI) are developing rapidly, and related technological applications are profoundly reshaping manufacturing technology systems, production models, and industrial forms. How can IP public services seize the favorable wind and set new sails?

The 15th Five-Year Plan for Intellectual Property Protection and Utilization explicitly proposes “advancing the digital and intelligent construction of IP public services” and sets up a special column on the “Intellectual Property Data Development and Utilization Project.” In August this year, CNIPA, for the first time jointly with the National Data Administration, issued the Opinions on Strengthening the Development and Utilization of Intellectual Property Data Resources, connecting the two national strategies of data factor reform and building an IP powerhouse, and outlining a complete path for dormant data elements to “run” and be “used.”

At present, the National Intellectual Property Big Data Center and the National Intellectual Property Public Service Platform have fully opened 62 types of IP data, covering four major categories: patents, trademarks, geographical indications, and integrated circuit layout designs. Nationwide, driven by data elements and powered by AI, “AI + IP services” scenarios are blossoming one after another.

“Jiangsu Province has developed more than 70 AI intelligent tools in total, 37 of which are available in the ‘Su Zhihui’ app store. Three scenarios in the province were selected as ‘AI+’ application scenarios by CNIPA,” introduced Zhang Chuanbo, deputy director of the Jiangsu Provincial Intellectual Property Office. Among them, the Suzhou IP data “running” demonstration scenario focuses on three directions—compliant overseas expansion of cross-border e-commerce enterprises, patent transformation and application by small and medium-sized technology enterprises, and the development of regional key industries—and has launched six AI agents. Since its launch in April this year, it has provided more than 3,000 free services; the Changzhou “Chang Xiaozhi” AI agent enables one-click handling of patent searches and policy interpretation, further lowering the threshold for innovation entities to obtain professional services.

Hainan uses digitally and intelligently integrated comprehensive services to escort enterprises’ technology going global. “We have built a digitally and intelligently integrated comprehensive service model driven by both the ‘Haiyan Zhilian’ AI online platform and the ‘Zhi Xiao’er’ offline professional team, giving IP both the speed of intelligent computing power and the warmth of service,” introduced Cao Jin, deputy director of the Hainan Provincial Intellectual Property Office. The platform relies on the DeepSeek large model, includes nearly 190 million global patent documents and covers 172 countries and regions. It has provided more than 10,000 services in total, issued 354 technical analysis reports, and helped enterprises save more than 2 million yuan in service costs.

“The explorations in various localities are rich in content, distinctive in features, and full of highlights, providing references for us to do a good job in the next step,” said Yang Fan, director of the Public Service Department of CNIPA. CNIPA will work together with local IP systems to comprehensively improve service capabilities and work levels with stronger responsibility, better mechanisms, a more practical work style, and more measures, contributing more public service strength to accelerating the building of an IP powerhouse.