I think this is a really good work, comprehensive and quite clear. I really appreciated your idea of exploring the influence of utility model patent quality on the DVAR of companies by using a quality index to provide a policy reference for the optimisation of the patent system in China, which also has economic implications. However, some modifications are necessary. I think the introductory section should be revised by inserting recent references (2021/2022 or 2023), changes to the English language are also needed, and Table 1 should be constructed correctly (337-338). The same applies to Table 3 (393-394). The analysis is a good job and the conclusions are correctly written. However, I suggest that you argue the limitations of this study, but more importantly what the future research perspectives are.

Author Response

Thank you for your precious comments and advice on our manuscript titled “The Impact of Utility Model Patent Quality on Export Performance in China: A Moderated Mediation Effect Model”. Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. The revisions have been clearly highlighted by using the “Track Changes” function in Microsoft Word. Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Author,

Follow these recommendantions to insure the full resion version of the paper.

1. In the form of the paper: Please try to reduce the lines per paragraph (Max 5 lines). To givethe reader more comprehension. (exp: Line 28-90; line 128-153 ; line 182- 199 ; etc.).

* Table 1. Please make M(1) in the place of Model(1) ; M (2) in the palce of Model (2).......etc. TO IMPROVE MORE THE QUALITY OF THETABELANDTHE SIZE!

** For each table/s : add NOTE : M(1) is the MODEL (1) ...etc.

*** For each table/s : add the p-value significance (1%; 5% ; 10%)

***** sources : authors' caluculation with Statisatic Software '......'

2. Grammer and spelling : please revise again or try professionnel language service ( MDPI service can help too, option).

3. Content of the paper: ( abstract, Theory review, Method, results, Discussion, Limitations, Conclusion and recommendations/suggestions)

* Abstract: please fellow these steps : Aim f the study, Methodology/Design, Data sources and software, Findings, orginal value, Implications and limitations, recommendations.

*Theory (literature review) :Kindly update literature by adding new cietd researc articles. Why you conduct this research? Properly explain in this section.

* Data sources and materials: Kindly mention all sources of this study adn the softwares used.

*Results: Send us all input data for:

- Table 1. Baseline and Estimations of main effects based on industrial intensity

- Table 2. Regression results based on firms' trade patterns.

- Table 3. Robustness tests

- Table 4. Tests of mediation mechanisms for markups and relative prices.

- Table 5. Moderated mediation effect: Market segmentation.

** Endogeneity test : Please givethe theoritical rule TEST than after that comparaire with your calculation findings.

***4.3. Heterogeneity analysis : the same for this TEST!

**** Add limitations section.

G luck.

Author Response

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

(1) Why you choose utility model instead of invention? As for novelty and inventiveness, invention patents are more innovative and creative than utility model patents. According to the existing research, invention patent, especially high value invention patent, plays an important role in enhancing enterprise competitive advantage. Due to the lack of novelty and inventiveness, the utility model cannot fully reflect the global value chain.

(2) As you mentioned in line 35, the number of utility model licenses has increased in recent years. However, the countertrend rise in the number of utility models granted will decrease, because the quality of utility model in China is not high these years. In 2023, China National Intellectual Property Administration promotes obvious inventiveness review of utility models and aims to improve the quality of utility model. Therefore, the number of utility model licenses significantly decreases in January and February, 2023.

(3) As for patent quality, you just use technological breadth and depth to measure the width and depth of enterprise's utility model patent. Actually, technological breadth and depth cannot fully reflect patent quality, we usually consider patent maintenance time, overseas patent, patent citation, etc. Therefore, it is not enough just use IPC to measure utility model patent quality.

(4) There is no clearly explanation why you use patent data from 2000 to 2015. Although we have patent lag of 18 months, you can obtain patent data up to 2020. In addition, you don’t point out which patent platform you used to obtain patent data.

Author Response

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

There is hardly any information about the databases used. At the end of the article it is mentioned that the databases are not freely available. Even so, some descriptive statistics about them could help interpret the results. Without it, the results in many cases feel like "without base, hanging in the air".

A reformulation of the following conclusion is suggested. “A positive effect of utility models gradually emerges, which broadens the variety of intermediate goods. As a result, the domestic intermediate goods supply market is fully competitive.” – “Competitive markets” are usually referred to as markets were there are many companies and many buyers, the products are homogeneous, thus the market power of each company is limited. Most probably, the authors meant the competitiveness of the supply market.

Author Response

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

All changes have been made.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

Thank you for your approval of our manuscript manuscript titled “The Impact of Utility Model Patent Quality on Export Performance in China: A Moderated Mediation Effect Model”.

Best regards to you.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear author,

1. Hypotheses: must be validated ( you can add new table in the discussion section). And to give the statistic significance for each Hypothesis.

2. The input data must be provide under the submission system. You can contact the Submission manager to help which manner to upload the input data VERSION.

3. Endogeneity test : please provide statistic table.

4. Some recient research papers can be add to improve the study, you can read these paper and suggest the suitable to add in the reference.

Luigi A.; Mohsen, B.; Xihui, C.; Concetto, P.V. 2021.Knowledge spillovers and technical efficiency for cleaner production: An economic analysis from agriculture innovation, Journal of Cleaner Production,Vol.320,128830, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.128830.

Hamrouni, B.; Bourouis, A.; Korichi, A.& Brahmi, M.2021. Explainable Ontology-Based Intelligent Decision Support System for Business Model Design and Sustainability, Sustainability, 13(17), 9819. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13179819

Aldieri, L.; Brahmi, M.; Bruno, B.& Vinci, C.P. 2021. Circular Economy Business Models: The Complementarities with Sharing Economy and Eco-Innovations Investments, Sustainability,13(22),12438. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132212438

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

Thank you for your precious comments and advice on our manuscript titled “The Impact of Utility Model Patent Quality on Export Performance in China: A Moderated Mediation Effect Model”. Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. We have provided specific responses to your questions in the Word document below.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Based on existing experience, China's large number of low-quality utility model patents have to some extent hindered the improvement of enterprise innovation capabilities, hindered key technological breakthroughs in mid to low-end industries, and hindered their transformation to mid to high-end industries. The author of this article attempts to extract high-quality patents from existing utility model patents to demonstrate the important role of these patents in the transition from low-end industries to high-end industries. However, this assumption has the following drawbacks.

Firstly, whether it is small and medium-sized enterprises or large enterprises, if the degree of creativity of the invention is high, most of them will choose to apply for an invention patent. The author's opinion that utility model patents should be applied for first due to time constraints and not protected by invention patents is rare, because in terms of protection time, China's invention patents are protected for 20 years and utility model patents are protected for 10 years, If a high-quality invention is protected by a utility model with a shorter protection time instead, it will be detrimental to the realization of patent value, which is logically difficult to understand.

Secondly, although the author explained why only the years 2000 to 2015 were selected, I believe the data can still be expanded. Because it is now 2023 and the data is as of 2015, on the one hand, the data is too old, and the research results have limited significance for the present. On the other hand, it is currently unclear whether positive results can be obtained after data expansion. The data in the Incopat patent database can be updated to the present, and industrial enterprise data can still be supplemented with data from CSMAR and CNRDS databases for cross validation of data from 2015 to 2023.

Thirdly, the author only uses IPC patent numbers to measure patent quality, while neglecting important factors such as citations and overseas patents to measure patent quality. It is questionable whether the selected patents have high patent quality. The use of IPC patent numbers in the paper to measure quality also lacks literature support. The breadth and depth of technology cited in Reference34 are not directly related to patent quality, so only using IPC for patent quality measurement are lacking theoretical and literature support.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

Thank you for your precious comments and advice on our manuscript titled “The Impact of Utility Model Patent Quality on Export Performance in China: A Moderated Mediation Effect Model”. Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. We have provided specific responses to your questions in the Word document below.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors,

-There is missed NOTE after the table 1. Correlation coefficient of main variables ( * , **, and *** denote significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% levels, respectively. The results were obtained using Stata 14.)

- Add new undersection after ( 5.4. Moderated mediation effect) to present the Hypotheses validation. Add new table to present the four Hypotheses (supported/Rejected) of this study.

Good luck.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer: Thank you for your precious comments and advice on our manuscript titled “The Impact of Utility Model Patent Quality on Export Performance in China: A Moderated Mediation Effect Model”.We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. We have provided specific responses to your questions in the Word document below.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

This study merges enterprise utility model patent quality and export DVAR in the same analytical framework to explore their relationship. It’s interesting that this study uses patent data to explore DVAR. The author responded the questions I proposed. Although there are some limitations in this study, such as database selection, patent quality indicator selection, etc., I hope the author can explain them in limitations or future research directions.

Author Response

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

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