China's top court is drafting a judicial interpretation to protect online intellectual property rights, to be released in January at the earliest.

Kong Xiangjun, director of the third civil tribunal of the Supreme People's Court, said on Tuesday that disputes in online copyright infringement have taken up half of copyright cases this year, due to a boost in information exchanges on the Internet.

Kong said the upcoming judicial interpretation will try to strike a balance between protecting intellectual rights and facilitate a continued healthy growth in China’s online community.

Copyright infringement took up 60 percent of total IPR cases in the first 10 months of this year. The total number of IPR cases surged to more than 52,000 by the end of October, a 42 percent rise and the first time it went over the record of 50,000.