BEIJING -- People's courts across China handled 642,968 cases involving intellectual property rights (IPR) in 2021, of which 601,544 were concluded, said an official with the country's Supreme People's Court (SPC).

The numbers of cases handled and concluded have grown by 22.33 percent and 14.71 percent respectively from 2020, said SPC official Lin Guanghai.

Punitive compensation was given as part of the sentence in 895 cases, Lin added.

SPC on Thursday released a white paper on Chinese courts' IPR-related judicial protection in 2021. According to the white paper, the courts are seeing an increasing amount of IPR cases related to the internet, with more and more new and complicated legal issues involved.

The courts have been taking active measures to streamline the process of handling lawsuits and ease the burden of rights holders, said Lin.