In today’s globalized market environment, China’s hardware industry is constantly seeking innovation and breakthroughs.
Yongkang, Zhejiang, as the “Hardware Capital of China”, is activating the “innovation power” of the hardware industry with the strong support of the rule of law.
A few days ago, the person in charge of the Yongkang (Hardware) National Intellectual Property Rapid Rights Protection Center received the “Several Measures to Ensure the Construction of an Innovation Ecosystem in the “Hardware City” with High-quality and Efficient Procuratorial Performance and Comprehensively Activate the Legal Engine of the Most Competitive Business Environment” just issued by the Yongkang Municipal Procuratorate. He couldn’t help but sigh that “this document comes at the right time.”
Yongkang is a city founded on manufacturing. Intellectual property rights are the lifeline of industrial innovation and a key focus of legal construction and high-quality development.
In recent years, the Yongkang Municipal Procuratorate, guided by the Yongwujin Intellectual Property Protection Procuratorate Cooperation, has promoted the transformation of duty performance from “criminalization” to “governance”, injecting solid momentum into the transformation and upgrading of the local hardware industry.
In terms of protecting intellectual property rights, the Yongkang City Procuratorate adheres to the criminal policy of combining leniency with severity.
There was an intellectual property infringement case involving more than 27 million yuan that spanned Yongkang and Wuyi. Faced with the complex case, the prosecutor in charge of the case checked the commodity classification table word by word, repeatedly studied and judged industry practices and judicial standards, and finally pursued precise prosecution for the crime of illegal manufacturing of registered trademarks, achieving accurate identification and powerful crackdown on the infringement.
This is just a vivid epitome of how Yongkang Procuratorate protects intellectual property rights with precise justice and empowers industrial development with efficient performance of duties.
On this basis, the hospital has actively integrated into the overall regional development and innovatively built an intellectual property protection system of “four investigations per case, connection of executions, and cross-domain linkage.” Since 2025, it has handled a total of 25 criminal cases of intellectual property infringement involving 65 people, saving more than 4 million yuan in economic losses for enterprises, allowing enterprises that devote themselves to research and development to develop with peace of mind and strengthen their confidence in law-abiding operations.
Yongkang, Wuyi, and Jinyun are geographically connected and have integrated industries. However, cross-regional infringement and difficulty in rights protection were common problems that plagued the development of enterprises in the three places.
In November 2024, a symposium on cross-regional prosecutorial collaboration and protection of intellectual property rights in the Yongwujin Hardware Industry Cluster was held. The procuratorates of the three places signed a framework agreement, clearly focusing on joint case handling, system co-construction, and governance integration, to build a full-chain intellectual property “protection and education” work model, and promote the transformation of cross-regional protection from “fragmented collaboration” to “system linkage.”
On the basis of improving the cooperation mechanism, the procuratorates of the three places have further extended their service reach and jointly built the “Yongwujin Hardware Industry Cluster Intellectual Property Prosecution e-Station” online platform, which integrates multiple service functions such as accepting reports, legal consultation, online training, legal submission to enterprises, case promotion, etc., to achieve “online direct access and full coverage” of intellectual property services.
At the same time, the Yongkang Municipal Procuratorate relies on the platform to continue to deepen the “procuratorial + administrative + industry + enterprise” linkage mechanism and establish a working model of early intervention in investigations, joint verification of evidence, and consultation and analysis of difficult problems. Since 2025, it has assisted in the improvement of key evidence 14 times.
After years of innovation and development, Yongkang’s hardware industry has already jumped out of the early limitations of “small hardware” and moved towards “Yongkang Intelligent Manufacturing”. A large number of enterprises in pillar industries such as power tools, kitchen hardware and bathrooms have gone abroad.
However, in the past, many companies were unfamiliar with international intellectual property rules and failed to protect patents, trademarks, and trade secrets, which brought considerable legal risks to innovative development and overseas expansion.
To this end, the Yongkang Municipal Procuratorate went beyond the confines of “handling cases” and went deep into the front lines of enterprises and industry associations to carry out full coverage visits and surveys to study and judge the development status of key industries such as power tools, hardware, kitchen and bathroom hardware. It also linked up with market supervision departments and industry associations to jointly study and formulate the “Guidelines for the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights in the Power Tool Industry”, covering the entire chain of R&D project establishment, rights declaration, daily operations, and overseas rights protection, so that companies can innovate, operate in a regulated manner, and prevent with evidence.
Today, this guideline has become an important support for Yongkang enterprises to innovate and develop and expand overseas. The efficiency of defending intellectual property rights infringement cases in the city’s power tool industry has significantly improved.
In the future, Yongkang will continue to deepen the protection of the entire chain of intellectual property rights, use more precise justice, more collaborative mechanisms, and more effective governance to fully protect the high-quality development of the industry, and contribute solid prosecutorial power to building a world-leading manufacturing base and deepening the construction of Zhejiang under the rule of law.
Expert comments pointed out that this practice system presents the logic of in-depth transformation from “end-end punishment” to “front-end governance” in the performance of grassroots procuratorial work, achieving the same frequency resonance between legal guarantee and real economic innovation, and profoundly interpreting the enabling role of the rule of law as the core engine of a first-class business environment.
