?China's courts concluded 3,942 criminal cases involving infringement on intellectual property rights (IPR) last year, up 7.7 percent from 2009.

A total of 6,000 people were proved guilty of IPR infringement.

The figures were included in a white paper released Tuesday by the Supreme People's Court (SPC) in a bid to review the efforts made by Chinese courts in protecting intellectual property rights in 2010.

The white paper also stated that courts at all levels in the country have concluded 41,718 IPR-related civil cases, a 36.7 percent year-on-year increase.

The Supreme People's Court also held a press conference in Beijing Tuesday to introduce the white paper.

Kong Xiangjun, chief judge with the 3rd tribunal for civil trial with the SPC, announced at the press conference that the SPC would begin drafting a judicial explanation on protecting the copyrights of online publications, adding that more than a half of the copyright cases handled by the courts across the country involved internet copyright disputes.

In March this year, about 40 writers accused China's search engine giant Baidu of copyright infringement. Baidu's Wenku database was blamed for allowing literary works to become available online without the authors' prior approval.

Kong said the courts in the country would work to boost copyright protection while avoiding suppressing Internet development.