论文摘要

International joint patent applications, a means of legal protection for co-developed technologies by firms from different countries, are being affected by the emerging digital trade rules. We use data on firms' joint patent applications with foreign partners from the Bureau van Dijk Orbis Intellectual Property database to investigate the impact of digital trade rules on international joint patent applications at the firm level. Our empirical result suggests that digital trade rules included within preferential trade agreements significantly promote local firms' international joint patent applications. This result holds after a series of endogeneity tests and robustness checks. In addition, we find that the promotion effect is heterogeneous across the types of provisions, the digital intensity of sectors, the geographical contiguity between countries and the types of collaboration entities. Moreover, we demonstrate that digital trade rules promote firms' international joint patent applications through a critical mechanism that digital regulatory differences between countries are reduced. Furthermore, we find that digital trade rules increase the breadth, depth, and quality of firms' international joint patent applications. Overall, our study enriches the understanding of the effects of digital trade rules and sheds light on the factors that influence firms' international joint patent applications.

研究背景和研究意义

国际联合专利是跨境研发合作的核心法律保障，企业参与的动力是获取互补知识，但面临知识溢出风险。数字贸易规则通过降低跨境数据流通成本、防范知识泄露风险等途径，对企业的跨境研发合作及联合专利申请行为产生影响。现有研究多聚焦数字贸易规则的贸易效应，对其创新效应尤其是企业国际联合专利的影响及作用机制探讨不足。

本文理论上拓宽了数字贸易规则的研究边界，从贸易效应延伸至创新效应，丰富了国际协同创新影响因素的相关研究，特别是拓展了数字贸易规则与企业联合专利申请关联性的研究维度，为该领域研究提供了新的探索方向。实践上，为各国制定数字贸易规则、推动跨境研发合作提供了经验参考，也为企业开展国际联合专利申请、规避合作风险提供了决策依据。

作者简介

李川川，对外经济贸易大学2026年国际足联世界杯助理研究员、硕士生导师，主要研究方向为跨国公司投资与国际经贸规则。在Research Policy、China & World Economy、《经济研究》《管理世界》《世界经济》等国内外核心期刊发表论文20余篇，部分成果被《新华文摘》《中国社会科学文摘》等转载，出版《全球价值链上的中国》《中国国际投资报告2024》等专著多部。

文章链接：https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2025.105366