Abstract
This paper aims to systematically investigate the impacts of strengthening intellectual property
rights on patenting in China’s high-technology industries and to explore the potential
differences in response to patent reform by ownership. Empirical results show that the
estimated patent elasticity of R&Dis lower than that forOECDcountries, indicating relatively
low R&D productivity for China’s high-technology industries. The direct innovation effect
of technology imports is negative, while the absorptive ability embodied in R&D helps in
gaining external sources of knowledge, thus contributing to innovations. Specifically,
strengthening intellectual property rights can inducemore innovations in terms of patents in
China’s high-technology industries and is particularly relevant to foreign-owned hightechnology
enterprises.