Abstract:    There has been a long debate regarding whether enhancing cross-border intellectual property rights protection (CIPRP) and cultivating a responsible national image can foster innovation, which remains to be empirically verified. Based on the quasi-natural experiment that China revised legal items related to CIPRP in 2004, this paper used China′s industrial enterprise data and customs data and empirically examined the influence of CIPRP on enterprise innovation performance. The empirical findings indicated that (1) CIPRP attracts foreign direct investment, and encourages enterprises to expand both the quantity and variety of capital goods imports, thereby aiding firms in enhancing their innovation performance. (2) The heterogeneous impact of CIPRP on firms′ innovation performance is primarily reflected in foreign firms, firms located outside the "five trade ports", and mixed trade firms. (3) This innovation can eventually be absorbed and achieve technological catch-up. This paper also empirically examined the effect of CIPRP on firms′ innovation performance from the perspective of international trade. The results will offer important policy implications for leveraging institutional openness in the domain of intellectual property rights to draw in global innovation factors, and relieving the threat of "technology blockade".

Key words: cross-border intellectual property rights protection, firms′ innovation, import of capital goods, foreign direct investment, technology import