Da Vinci Code Verdict Expected Next Month

by Robin Pilgrim, LawAndTax-News.com, London

22 March 2006

Following the conclusion of the copyright dispute in the UK High Court over Dan Brown's bestseller, The Da Vinci Code, it emerged that a verdict will not be delivered by Judge Peter Jones for several weeks.

The dispute between Mr Brown and two of the authors of an earlier non-fiction book based on similar themes began to be heard in the UK's High Court earlier this month.

Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, authors of The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail alleged that Mr Brown lifted the central premise of their work - namely that descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene married into the Merovingian French royal bloodline, and are protected by a secretive French society known as the Priory of Sion - and transplanted it almost without amendment into The Da Vinci Code.

The two men are suing their publisher, Random House, which also published Mr Brown's more recent book, and if successful, could gain a share of his not inconsiderable profits, and delay the launch in May of the film version of The Da Vinci Code.

Although commentators have, for the most part, declined to predict the likely content of Judge Jones' ruling, the New York Times drew attention this week to the tone of the questions directed by the judge at Baigent and Leigh's lawyer, Jonathon Rayner James.

According to a NY Times report published on Monday, disputing the assertion that Mr Brown and his researcher wife, Blythe Brown had hidden the truth about when they first consulted The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail by failing to include the book in the bibliography and synposis first submitted to Random House, Judge Jones observed that:

"If he's trying to hide the fact that he's using 'H.B.H.G.' in the synopsis, what's the point of shouting it from the rooftops in the book?"

Blythe Brown, who conducted much of the research for her husband's book, did not give evidence in the case.

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