The Other Da Vinci Code Conspiracy

"The Da Vinci Code" author Dan Brown is in hot water over new allegations of copyright violations:

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Author Dan Brown appeared in court on Monday at the start of a trial in which two historians say he copied their work to write "The Da Vinci Code" best-seller and are suing his British publisher.

Richard Leigh and Michael Baigent are suing their own publisher Random House for lifting "the whole architecture" of the research that went into their 1982 non-fiction book "The Holy Blood, and the Holy Grail," itself a bestseller.

Brown's religious thriller has more than 36 million copies in print worldwide and has upset Catholics for suggesting Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had a child by her. The same theory is put forward in "The Holy Blood, and the Holy Grail."

Lawyers on both sides of the case have declined to comment on how the trial might affect sales of the hugely successful novel or the distribution of a major Hollywood adaptation which Sony Pictures plans to release in May.

Jonathan James, representing Baigent and Leigh, told the High Court that "... Dan Brown copied from 'The Holy Blood, and the Holy Grail' and therefore the publication of the result by the defendant is in infringement of the copyright of my client in the United Kingdom."

The most intriguing claim made by the two is certainly striking:

Commentators have pointed out that a major character in 41-year-old Brown's book, Sir Leigh Teabing, has a name that is an anagram of Leigh and Baigent.

That's pretty interesting. We'll see how this one goes.