Research On The Impact Of Intellectual Property Rules In China’s FTA On The Quality Of Export Products

In the era of rapidly developing knowledge-based economy,developed countries are no longer satisfied with the provisions on intellectual property rights protection under international conventions such as TRIPS,and continuously demand higher levels of protection and stricter punishment for infringement,attempting to construct a new global system for intellectual property protection under the TRIPS-plus standard.As China enters a new phase of high-level opening-up,it actively participates in the construction of highstandard FTAs.More and more intellectual property rules with TRIPS-plus provisions are being included in the signed FTAs.Therefore,it is necessary to study the role that intellectual property protection rules have played in China’s trade upgrading process,and whether they can promote the upgrading of China’s export enterprises.This article takes the FTA intellectual property protection provisions as the research object.Firstly,it analyzes the transition of FTA intellectual property protection standards from "TRIPS" to "TRIPS-plus."Secondly,using the DESTA database,this article constructed an evaluation system for intellectual property protection in FTAs and measured the depth of intellectual property protection in Chinese FTAs.With this system,a comparison was made with other countries to study the level of intellectual property protection in FTAs signed by China.Then,the article explains the determination and calculation methods of export product quality.It also discusses the impact pathway and mechanism of FTA intellectual property protection on export product quality.On this basis,the article uses data from Chinese industrial enterprises from 2004 to 2014 and constructs a fixed effects model to empirically analyze the impact of FTA knowledge property protection depth on the quality of exported products.It also tests the impact of enterprise and product heterogeneity,as well as the mediating effects of innovation,threshold,and FDI.The result of this study shows that China has achieved a relatively high level of FTA intellectual property protection,which is close to the average level of OECD countries.In terms of the content of intellectual property protection,the TRIPS-plus content in China’s FTAs is mostly a continuation of domestic law,and has not significantly exceeded the level of domestic protection.The empirical analysis shows that FTA intellectual property protection depth has a significant promoting effect on China’s export product quality.Among them,the provisions of intellectual property rights have a positive promoting effect,while the provisions of intellectual property implementation have a certain inhibiting effect.The analysis distinguishing industry and enterprise heterogeneity shows that FTA intellectual property protection depth has a more obvious promoting effect on low-tech enterprises and products.The test of mediation effects shows that FTA intellectual property protection depth has an impact on export product quality through three channels:innovation effect,threshold effect,and FDI effect.Finally,based on the empirical research results,this paper analyzes the real challenges faced by China in international intellectual property issues.Four policy recommendations are proposed:building a "Chinese paradigm" for FTA intellectual property negotiations,further improving the domestic intellectual property protection level,improving the incentive system for endogenous innovation,and raising awareness of intellectual property protection among enterprises.