Considering the conformal scaling gauge symmetry as a fundamental symmetry of nature in the presence of gravity, a scalar field is required and used to describe the scale behavior of the universe. In order for the scalar field to be a physical field, a gauge field is necessary to be introduced. A gauge invariant potential action is constructed by adopting the scalar field and a real Wilson-like line element of the gauge field. Of particular, the conformal scaling gauge symmetry can be broken down explicitly via fixing gauge to match the Einstein–Hilbert action of gravity. As a nontrivial background field solution of pure gauge has a minimal energy in gauge interactions, the evolution of the universe is then dominated at earlier time by the potential energy of background field characterized by a scalar field. Since the background field of pure gauge leads to an exponential potential model of a scalar field, the universe is driven by a power-law inflation with the scale factor a(t)~tp. The power-law index p is determined by a basic gauge fixing parameter gF via [Formula: see text]. For the gauge fixing scale being the Planck mass, we are led to a predictive model with gF=1 and p≃62.