Abstract: Intellectual property protection is an important institutional factor for stimulating innovation and improving innovation resources. This paper constructs urban-level intellectual property protection indicators from two dimensions: intellectual property system supply and intellectual property judicial protection. Taking China’s A-share listed companies from 2011 to 2021 as research samples, this paper systematically examines the impact of intellectual property protection on enterprise digital technology innovation and the underlying mechanism. The study finds that intellectual property protection can significantly promote enterprises’ digital technology innovation, and the above conclusion still hold after a series of robustness tests. The influence channel test shows that the increase in the intensity of R&D investment and the improvement of the level of digital transformation are important ways for intellectual property protection to empower enterprises’ digital technology innovation. The results of heterogeneity analysis show that the enabling effect of intellectual property protection on digital technology innovation is more significant in the group of state-owned enterprises, large-scale enterprises and intellectual property industry enterprises. The above research findings are helpful for further exploring the effect of intellectual property protection on enterprise digital technology innovation, and thus provide policy reference for relevant government departments to use intellectual property protection to stimulate enterprise digital technology innovation.

Key words: intellectual property protection, enterprise digital technology innovation, R&D investment, digital transformation