Abstract:  From the angle of government resources allocation, this paper examines the relationship between local government “R&D worship” and enterprise patent bubbles. The results show that emphasizing patent quantity and neglecting patent quality obviously exists in local governments’ support for innovative enterprises. The more patents, the higher the government subsidies and the more tax incentives, but there is no obvious relationship between patent quality and government resources allocation; however, this situation has been alleviated with the improvement of marketization. Further studies show that patent quality is more helpful than patent quantity to improve enterprise performance and patent quality also gains more excess return than patent quantity. The research of this paper is helpful to rational distribution of innovative resources, and it also provides a reference for the government to develop innovative incentive policies.

Key words: R&D worship, patent quality, patent citation, patent bubble