Abstract: Innovation can drive high-quality development by transforming the mode of economic growth, improving social well-being and improving the ecological environment, and its space spillover will also have an impact on high-quality development. Based on the panel data of 283 cities from 2004 to 2017, the administrative protection of intellectual property is used as an instrumental variable to examine the relationship between innovation and its spatial spillover, administrative protection of intellectual property, and high-quality economic development. The study found that innovation has an effect on high-quality economic development, but the space spillover of innovation has failed to promote high-quality economic development; administrative protection of intellectual property can promote high-quality economic development through incentives for innovation, and the improved intellectual property environment is more conducive to the formation of a positive feedback mechanism for innovation spillover; utility model patents and design patents have heterogeneous effects on the high-quality development of urban economy. In order to fully enhance the role of innovation in high-quality economic development, it is necessary to fully release the positive feedback effect of the space spillover of innovation, play the active role of intellectual property administrative protection, and implement classified guidance for urban innovation.
