In a follow-up to the story we have been reporting concerning the court case brought against “The Da Vinci Code” author Dan Brown, today a British court found him not guilty of plagiarizm.

Two of the three authors of “The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail” claimed that Brown had used their investigative approach from their book to write “The Da Vinci Code” and leveled a lawsuit against both Brown and his publisher Random House. However, once on the stand Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, the authors bringing the suit, started back-peddling on their accusations.

The High Court in London stated that even if the central themes may have been copied, “they are too general or of too low a level of abstraction to be capable of protection by copyright law.”

After the court found in his favor an outwardly relieved Brown stated, “….shows that this claim was utterly without merit. “I’m still astonished that these two authors chose to file their suit at all.” Brown went on to state emphatically, “A novelist must be free to draw appropriately from historical works without fear that he’ll be sued … This is a good day both for those who write and those who enjoy reading.”

Random House, who published both works was also outwardly relieved. The publishing company’s CEO Gail Rebuck spoke out saying, “We are pleased that justice and common sense have prevailed.”

However, Baigent and Leigh did not leave the proceedings happy as the High Court of Britain denied them the ability to appeal the case and levied a court bill toward them in the neighborhood of 1 million pounds, or $1.75 million US.