The importance of intellectual property rights in industrialized countries, as well as in emerging economies, has been increasing considerably over the past two decades. An important event in the course of this development was the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Especially regarding the economic development of the People's Republic of China (PRC), intellectual property rights have attracted the attention of scientists and decision-makers in business and public policy. While China meets the basic legal requirements of a well-developed system for the application and examination of intellectual property rights, the enforcement of these rights still proves to be a major issue. Academic research regarding China's IPR system is still sparse. Moreover, there are considerable gaps in the literature. In previous academic studies, the examination process at the Chinese State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) has not been researched thoroughly. Moreover, the fundamental relationship between international trade flows, foreign direct investment and the design of the patent system in the People's Republic is in need of more detailed analysis. In his dissertation, Johannes Liegsalz tackles three specific questions immediately related to this nexus. He applies multivariate econometric methods to different data sets which were assembled specifically for the purpose of this thesis. The first chapter of the thesis analyzes the duration of the examination process for patent applications at the SIPO.