The Chinese pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo.

By Guo Qiang

In the latest response to plagiarism accusations in the lead-up to Saturday's opening of the World Expo, organizers in Shanghai pledged Wednesday that the protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) is a priority throughout the six-month fair.

"We have attached great importance to IPR protection. … Any IPR conflicts with regard to the Expo should be dealt with according to relevant laws," Hong Hao, director of the Bureau of Shanghai World Expo Coordination, said Wednesday at a press conference amid public suspicion of plagiarism over the design of China's pavilion, mascot and theme song.

The design of the China pavilion, "The Crown of the East," an inverted pyramid-like building, is being scrutinized as a copy of a former Japanese pavilion designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando for the 1992 Seville Expo in Spain. And some have claimed that China's pavilion is similar to the Canadian pavilion from the Montreal Expo in 1967.

But a deputy chief designer for China's pavilion has refuted such allegations.

Ni Yang, who is also the deputy dean of the Architectural Design Institute at South China University, told the Guangzhou-based New Express newspaper Tuesday that, "There are several differences between his and my work," referring to Ando's design.

"His work was for the purpose of decoration, but mine is a building. The style of the pavilion is widely used in architecture design, so that it is not the creation of Tadao Ando," Ni said.

Ni pointed to windows as an example, asking whether someone should be accused of plagiarism if other structures contain square windows. "Furthermore," he contested, "there are wide differences between the two pavilions in terms of architectural details, materials, color and size. And this kind of design originated from China's traditional bucket arch."

A leading Chinese architect backed Ni, saying the design of the pavilion was inspired by a traditional Chinese style, suggesting that the plagiarism accusations are being pointed in the wrong direction.

A close-up of the Japanese pavilion at the 1992 Seville Expo.

Cui Tong, chief designer at the Institute of Architecture Design and Research at the China Academy of Sciences, also told the Global Times that the designs of the Chinese pavilion and the Japanese pavilion are totally different from an architectural perspective.

"Both designs were inspired by the concept of the traditional Chinese bucket-arch architectural technique, so if we're talking about plagiarism, it is the Japanese who initially copied the traditional Chinese architectural technique," he said.

Standards for defining plagiarism in architectural design are absent in China, which may result in misinterpretations of architectural works, the architect added.

But the design is not the only aspect of the Expo to have fallen under plagiarism accusations.

The star-studded theme song, 2010 Waiting for You, featuring Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan and a host of other well-known celebrities, was pulled last week in what organizers explained as copy-right concerns, according to the Expo's official website.

The song was found to be 97 percent similar to a Japanese song, "Stay the Way You Are," by Mayo Okamoto, which was released 13 years ago.

The Shanghai Expo is likely to become the world's largest gathering in history. A total of 70 million visitors are expected to attend the fair before it closes on October 31.

Song Shengxia and Deng Jingyin contributed to this story

The 1992 Japanese pavilion.

Ni Yang, the architect of the Chinese pavilion at the Shanghai Expo.