出口、贸易成本和专利出海

Export,Trade Cost and Patenting Abroad

作为一种重要的知识产权形式,专利为创新产品中无形资产的专有权利提供了正式保障,是推动中国制造业全球价值链上移的重要手段。近年来,中国企业在海外市场面临的知识产权纠纷日渐增多。在此背景下,布局海外专利对保障中国企业高质量“走出去”参与全球竞争的重要性日益凸显,但关于中国专利出海的研究较为鲜见。基于2001—2018年国民经济行业大类层面的出口和专利申请数据,本文考察了出口对中国海外专利布局的影响。结果显示,制造业出口显著地推动了中国在海外专利申请数量的增长。进一步的研究表明,地理距离在其中表现出调节作用且在制度维度上表现出异质性。具体而言,在知识产权保护强度较高的国家,地理距离会进一步放大出口对海外专利申请数量的促进作用;而在遗传距离和文化距离邻近的国家,地理距离则表现出负向调节作用。另外,“一带一路”倡议也促进了出口对中国专利出海的影响。在当前全球贸易环境较为动荡和中国出口产品努力走向全球价值链中高端的背景下,本文的经验证据对推动中国以专利为代表的无形资产海外布局有一定的启示和参考。

Patent,an important form of intellectual property(IP),provides formal protection for the exclusive rights over intangible assets.It is a key tool to drive China’s manufacturing industry up the global value chain.In recent years,Chinese enterprises have been facing more and more IP disputes in overseas markets.In order to ensure the high-quality“going global”for Chinese enterprises,the importance of patenting abroad has been highlighted.However,there are relatively few studies on this topic.Based on the data of exports and patent applications at the industry level from 2001 to 2018,this paper investigates the impact of exports on China's patenting abroad.The paper shows that the export of manufacturing significantly boosts the number of Chinese patent applications abroad.Moreover,we find that geographical distance shows different moderating effects in the formal and informal institutional dimensions.Specifically,geographical distance has a positive moderating effect in countries with stronger IP protection while geographical distance exhibits a negative moderating effect in countries with closer genetic and cultural distances to China.In addition,the Belt and Road Initiative also facilitates the impact of exports on China’s patent applications abroad.In the context of China’s exports moving up the global value chain,the evidence in this study provides implications for the promotion of China’s overseas invisible assets portfolio.