HOOPER: Well, the interest of it, was that there wasn't direct copying-what they were saying was, you've taken the central theme of the book, or the architecture and structure of the book.

INSKEEP: Was this an important case because Dan Brown's book, in addition to being a bestseller, was a work of historical fiction, which is a huge share of the publishing market? And he has dismissed it, leaving them with an enormous legal bill. It's a wonderful analysis that he's done, but at the end of the day he thought nothing at all of the claimant's case. So the judge had to make due on the evidence he had.

And also, that it was a pity that one of the three authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, a man called Lincoln-who would've said that he got the idea from someone else, himself-didn't give evidence either. He thought that it was a pity that Dan Brown's wife, who had done most of the research on his book, didn't give evidence. HOOPER: I think he was slightly critical of both parties. DAVID HOOPER (intellectual properties lawyer, Reynolds, Porter, Chamberlain London): Well, the suggestion was that Dan Brown, in writing The Da Vinci Code-which was a work of fiction-had lifted whole chunks of his book from Holy Blood, Holy Grail, which was meant to be a historical work. Hooper, can you remind us of what the charges were against Dan Brown? One person closely watching this case is David Hooper, he's an intellectual property lawyer in Britain and he's on the phone. Their book, which was labeled nonfiction, set forth the idea that Jesus and Mary Magdalene produced a child, which is a major theory of the Da Vinci Code. And today, a British judge ruled that the author of that book, Dan Brown, did not plagiarize the work of two other authors. Gnostic Christian scriptures are also part of the plot of a bestselling text from today, the Da Vinci Code.

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