The propose of this study is to employ data from Taiwanese multinational manufacturing enterprises (MNES) to test the theory developed by Gersbach and Schmutzler (2011). I use panel probit model to investigate the nexus between research and development (R&D) offshoring and intellectual property rights (IPRs) protection. In addition, firm characteristics such as firm size and R&D intensity, and host country characteristics such as language barrier, market size, market competitiveness, technological absorption and cultural gap of the host country are also included as control variables. The empirical results suggest that local IPR protection, language barrier, local market competitiveness, and cultural gap are important determinants of R&D offshoring.