Abstract: Taking the samples of ChiNext listed firms, it investigates whether Chinese ChiNext Stock Market can recognize innovation quality, which is measured by the number of patent authorization of different types based on the analysis of the relationship between corporates’ innovative activities and corporates’ performance. The empirical result shows that: (1) different types of patents all have positive effect on corporate financial performance. Patent of innovation has a more significant effect than patent of utility does while patent of appearance has no significant effect, which means that innovation quality can reflect corporate operating performance. (2) Patent of innovation has positive effect on corporates’ Book-to-Market ratio while other two types of patents do not. This implies that Chinese ChiNext Stock Market can to some extent recognize innovation quality——the market can effectively recognize the incremental information of the patent of innovation, but cannot recognize the minor information difference of the other two types of patents.

Key words: ChiNext Stock Market, innovation quality, patent of innovation, patent of utility, patent of appearance