This paper analyzes the development status of intellectual property protection for virtual assets in China, starting from the concepts of virtual economy, virtual industry and intellectual property protection. Using the panel regression model, it explores the influence of intellectual property protection on the development of virtual industry and the indirect mechanism of mediation effect, so as to reflect the responsibility of intellectual property law in virtual reality production objects side by side. The empirical analysis shows that the scale of the virtual economy continues to expand, growing from 28 trillion yuan in 2018 to 50 trillion yuan in 2023. The structure of the virtual economy continues to improve, and the proportion of virtual industrialization and industrial virtualization continues to increase. In the regression analysis, all models passed the F test at the 1% significance level, so intellectual property protection has a positive impact on the development of the virtual industry. Moreover, the impact of intellectual property protection on the development of virtual industry has a significant positive effect (coefficient of 0.045). Therefore, if you want the virtual industry to continuously develop, you have to strengthen the level of intellectual property protection.