Abstract: Strengthening the judicial protection of intellectual property rights is of great significance to stimulate the vitality of social innovation. The establishments of intellectual property right courts in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou in 2014 have provided the scenario of quasi-natural experiment for the studies of the impacts of strengthening juridical protection of intellectual property on corporate innovation. The empirical analysis based on the data of 2155 listed companies in 222 prefecture-level cities from 2007 to 2016 reveals that the level of China's intellectual property rights protection is still at the efficient innovation motivation stage of“optimal intellectual property theory”, and that strengthening the rule of law for intellectual property rights protection by the establishment of intellectual property right courts has significantly promoted corporate innovation. The intellectual property courts have promoted corporate innovation through optimizing the juridical environment for independent innovation, encouraging enterprises' R&D investment, reducing the losses in corporate R&D profits and other mechanisms. Therefore, to strengthen the linkage between legislation and law enforcement of intellectual property rights protection and to promote the specialization of judicial institutions of intellectual property rights protection is a powerful measure to improve China's rule of law system for intellectual property rights and to further promote social innovations.

Key words: courts for intellectual property right cases, corporate innovation, R&D incentive