PFI (Profiting from Innovation) theoretical framework for analyzing the relation between innovation and appropriability provides a systematic and new perspective for analyzing the appropriability. In the light of PFI framework and with the availability of firm-level data acquired through national and regional innovation surveys, foreign scholars have been carrying out a substantial amount of research in the appropriability in the past 30 years. The appropriability tools investigated have been extended from intellectual property, especially the patent, to lead time, learning curve and human resource management etc. In this paper, we review the empirical literature under three headings, namely: i) the ranking of effectiveness of the different appropriability methods as perceived by firms; ii) the determinants of firms' perceptions about the effectiveness of each appropriability tool; iii) the interaction between different appropriability tools. The paper aims at providing some suggestions for China's innovation research.