The number of lawsuits over intellectual property rights (IPR) violations that were closed by Chinese courts last year increased by 37.7 percent year-on-year, according to a report from the Supreme People's Court (SPC) on Sunday.

Chinese courts closed a total of 66,000 lawsuits involving IPR violations in 2011, said the report on the work of the SPC, which was delivered by Chief Justice Wang Shengjun at a meeting of the annual parliamentary session.

The increase was partly attributed to 30 measures adopted by the SPC to enhance IPR protection, Wang said.

The supreme court also supervised trials of 44 cases involving serious offenses and those that left especially bad impacts, he said.

Moreover, prosecutors charged 6,870 suspects with IPR violations last year, according to a report on the work of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, which was delivered by Procurator-General Cao Jianming at the same session.

(Xinhua News Agency March 11, 2012)