Rowling may face court on copycat claim

Mr Justice Kitchin ruled yesterday that the claim by the estate of the late Adrian Jacobs had a chance of success but that it was "improbable".

He refused applications by Ms Rowling and her publishers, Bloomsbury, for an immediate judgment dismissing the case as having no chance of success.

But he ordered that Paul Allen, the estate's trustee, pay money into court as security for the costs of the case if it goes to trial.

Mr Jacobs wrote what the judge described as a "16-page novella" entitled Willy the Wizard and Mr Allen claims Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire infringed the copyright.

Ms Rowling and her publishers say the books are not similar except at the most generalised level and those similarities had happened by chance.

The Potter author said she had never heard of Willy the Wizard or Mr Jacobs before the publication of the Goblet book.

Mr Allen is claiming that there is substantial evidence to show that Ms Rowling's claims that she did not have access to Mr Jacobs's book before she wrote Goblet are untrue, the judge explained.

Willy the Wizard was published in 1987. A year later Mr Jacobs was declared bankrupt and died in 1997.

Mr Allen claims that in 1987, Christopher Little, who became Ms Rowling's literary agent some eight years later, was given copies of Mr Jacobs's book and that he gave one to Ms Rowling before she wrote Goblet or any of the Harry Potter books.