BEIJING, Dec. 8 (Xinhuanet) -- A Beijing court has ruled the 21-year-old Chinese popular writer Guo Jingming, whose novels are widely adored by teenagers around China, plagiarized several plot elements from another book in his best seller.

    Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court ordered Guo and his publishing company halt publishing the book "Falling Blossoms in Romantic Dream," a story of entangled love between a few youngsters, noted the verdict passed over the weekend.

    Sources noted the book has sold more than one million copies and attained a large scale of popularity.

    Guo and the publisher are told to pay 200,000 yuan (24,000 US dollars) to the plaintiff 25-year-old Zhuang Yu who claimed Guo's book plagiarized the idea, story, main plots, major characters andlanguage of one of her earlier published books.

    Zhuang called for a compensation of 500,000 yuan (about 60,000 US dollars) at total, said Wednesday's China Daily, an English newspaper.

    "Twelve major plot elements in Guo's book are the same or similar to Zhuang's. Meanwhile, a total of 57 paragraphs in Guo's are the same or similar to Zhuang's," the paper cited the verdict.

    The court, nevertheless, did not support the plaintiff's claim that Guo violated her idea, language and characteristics of major characters in the book, it said.

    "There is no regulation concerning the protection of concept inChina's Copyright Law, language should not be monopolized by a certain person, and features of characters are not under protection," according to the verdict.

    Guo and his publisher, Chunfeng Literature and Art Publishing House, were required to compensate the plaintiff 200,000 yuan (some 24,000 US dollars). Beijing Books Building as another defendant was obliged to stop selling the book. Enditem