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Our study builds a model of cumulative growth in order to analyze the relationship between intellectual property rights (IPRs) and economic growth for a cross-section of countries for the period 1975-2000. This article focuses on the impacts of IPRs on growth gap between countries using a catching-up model and USPTO database. We find that IPRs affect economic growth by stimulating the accumulation of physical capital. However, the economic effects of IPRs on innovation activity are absent in this study. We find also the cumulative causation relationship between investment and growth. Lastly, our estimation results show that the wide variety of possible growth paths available to countries, depending on their 'social capability'.