`Da Vinci' Judge Puts His Own Secret Code in Ruling

April 26 (Bloomberg) -- The British judge who cleared author Dan Brown of plagiarizing the plot of his bestseller ``The Da Vinci Code'' embedded his own secret code within the judgment as a ``bit of fun,'' starting a race among lawyers to crack it. Justice Peter Smith earlier this month rejected a claim brought by two authors, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, that Brown stole their theories for his thriller, which has sold around 40 million copies worldwide. Lawyers have noticed that the judge's 71-page decision contains a series of odd italicizations, the first of which seem to spell out ``Smithy code.'' [More]