China′s economic growth rate is slowing down, and the economic structure needs to be adjusted and optimized. The mode of development has shifted from rapid and extensive growth to high-quality economic growth driven by technological progress and efficiency reform. Innovation leads to high-quality economic development according to the thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era. Previous literatures on the high-quality economic development remain in the stage of connotation definition and theoretical elaboration and only emphasize the role of innovation, lacking empirical test especially in the discussion on the patent quality and high-quality economic development. The studies also lack attention to contextual factors, such as intellectual property protection. So we intend to fill this gap in the literatures by analyzing the relationship between the patent quality and high-quality economic developments.
    From the perspective of Romer′s theory of endogenous growth, the knowledge as a production factor will generate positive externalities and drive the sustainable economic growth and so knowledge and technological progress are the main driving force of economic growth. Patent is an important carrier of knowledge and innovation, and so patent quality represents a country′s technological progress level and innovation degree. Patents with a higher level of quality will bring in greater increase in production efficiency and economic value. High-quality economic development refers to higher production efficiency and resource allocation efficiency and so the total labor productivity is an important indicator of the quality of economic development. Improving patent quality is a significant measure to improve innovation level and lead industrial reform that is a primary prerequisite for high-quality economic development. Therefore, the patent quality affects the high-quality economic development positively. The rights of enterprises and R&D personnel are well protected in the context of high level of IP protection. Hence, technical personnel and enterprises are highly motivated and invention patents with a high degree of innovation can be quickly applied and improve production efficiency, which brings in huge economic benefits to enterprises or organizations. Other enterprises or organizations will respond to market competition by improving patent quality that leads to the improvement of production efficiency of the whole industry. In the process of economic transformation and development in China at the present stage, intellectual property protection positively moderates the relationship between patent quality and total labor productivity. That is, the intellectual property protection enhances the effect of patent quality on high-quality economic development. 
    Based on the theory of endogenous economic growth, this paper analyzes the impact of patent quality on high-quality economic development by using provincial panel data of China from 2003 to 2017. There are 450 observations in the sample. Patent data, GDP and regional employment data are mainly from the national bureau of statistics, China demographic yearbook and China science and technology statistical yearbook. The ratio of the number of invention patents to the total number of patents is used as the proxy index of patent quality and the high-quality economic development is measured by the full labor productivity. Control variables include number of universities, industrial structure, and the dummy variable of region etc. We use the dynamic panel data models (Difference GMM) to reduce the concern of endogenous problem by control the fixed effect and test our hypotheses. 
    The empirical results show that patent quality has a positive effect on the high-quality economic development significantly and intellectual property protection enhance the positive relationship between the patent quality and high-quality economic development. We also run other models to test to check the robustness of the results. Firstly, we regard the energy consumption per ten thousand yuan of GDP as the proxy variable of high-quality economic development and give two results of difference GMM and system GMM using dynamic panel data model. The result illustrate the patent quality can reduce energy consumption per GDP, which supports the positive impact of patent quality on the high-quality economic development. What′s more, we use the alternative proxy variable of IP protection to make the robustness check, such as the IP protection index, the proportion of lawyers and the proportion of agency companies. The coefficients of the interaction term are all significantly positive regardless of the small change in the value of coefficients. Therefore, our results are robust. 
    According to our knowledge of prior literatures, it is the first time to construct the theoretical framework of the effect of patent quality on high-quality development in the view of patent. This paper focuses on the patent quality that reflects the technological innovation level and provides empirical evidence for understanding the connotation of high-quality development "more efficient and more sustainable", which enriches the literature of the thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era. The theoretical contribution of this paper is to build the theoretical model of the influence of patent quality on the high-quality economic development from the perspective of patent for the first time and make an empirical test. This paper expands the exist literatures on innovation and high-quality economic development and specifies the scientific connotation of that innovation is the primary driver of development. Patent quality mainly represents technological progress in the theory of endogenous growth. At the same time, the intellectual property protection is introduced as a moderator to test the boundary conditions of the effect of patent quality on high-quality economic development, which reveals the influence of contextual factors on the relationship between patent quality and high-quality economic development.
    The results provides the policy implications for the government to make innovation incentive policy and assessment system. Firstly, the government should improve the evaluation index of innovation performance and increase subsidies for the invention patents improve the quality of patents, which conforms to the inherent requirements of high-quality economic development. If the government highlights the number of patent and underestimates the patent quality, the patent bubble is produced to be harmful to high-quality economic development. The government should build a good business environment which strengthens the protection of intellectual property rights. Furthermore, effective incentive policies should be made to attract more lawyers and intellectual agency companies to provide professional services for enterprises. Intellectual property protection facilitates the transformation of high-quality patent and enhances the positive effect of patent quality on the production efficiency.