Randolph The judge in the Da Vinci Code case, where Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, claimed Dan Brown “appropriated the architecture” of their book in his novel, has prevailed with good sense.
Their claim was to do with copyright infringement. As we know, and as we find in the Berne Convention as well as other international copyright laws, you cannot copyright an idea, only a tangible expression of that idea.
So basically, Dan Brown used an idea and wrote a novel around it, but did not infringe the copyright of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. Jolly good for the judge, and copyright law in general.
A pity, since it’s a crap book, and Tom Hanks is playing in the movie which is releasing next month. Ah well, bad taste prevailed over good sense.