This article takes the award-winning traditional Chinese medicine（TCM） patents in the China Patent Award as the breakthrough point to analyze the innovative research progress and achievements of TCM in the past thirty years， such as type of patentees， geographical distribution， technology types， international layout and textual features. The China Patent Award has been selected for 24 sessions so far， with 192 patents awarded for TCM， accounting for 2.3% of the total number of awarded patents. Among the award-winning patents of TCM， the patentees are mainly enterprises， and the active geographic regions of TCM innovation include Guangdong， Shandong， Guangxi， Guizhou， Jiangsu and other provinces. The types of award-winning patents mainly focus on TCM compositions， followed by preparation methods and new applications. The main clinical applications include cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases， respiratory system diseases and orthopedic diseases. However， there is still much room for improvement in the international layout， and the quality of text has been steadily improving year by year. Obviously， award-winning patents represent a high level in various aspects， including patent quality， technology advancement， protection strength and social benefits. This article analyzes the overall situation of patent awards in TCM， and discusses the gold award-winning patented technologies， the preparation method of HuoXiang Zhengqi liquid oral preparation（CN911072543） and a method of preparing anti-cancer drug elemene from Curcuma wenyujin（CN200910162658.1）， as representative technologies of TCM compounds and extracts， respectively， providing references for future innovation and intellectual property protection related to TCM.