A U.S. federal judge ruled on Monday in favor of author J.K. Rowling in her copyright infringement lawsuit against a fanatic, who was set to publish an encyclopedia to Harry Potter series.

Judge Robert Patterson said in his ruling that the encyclopedia would violate Rowling's copyright and would cause her irreparable harm as a writer: "[The] Lexicon appropriates too much of Rowling's creative work for its purposes as a reference guide."

Judge Patterson permanently blocked publication of the reference guide and awarded the plaintiffs 6,750 U.S. dollars in damages.

Rowling launched a lawsuit last year against Steven Vander Ark and his publishers, RDR Books.

Vander Ark, 50, a former school librarian, runs a popular Harry Potter Lexicon website, which is a guide to the seven Potter books and includes detailed descriptions of characters, creatures, spells and potions.

Vander Ark said he wrote the Harry Potter encyclopedia in response to the demand of fans of his Web site.

During testimony in April, the Edinburgh-based Rowling said the unauthorized book would simply be a "rearrangement" of her work and constitute a "wholesale theft of 17 years of my hard work."

"I believe that this book constitutes the wholesale theft of 17 years of my hard work," she testified, going on to denounce the book as plagiarism and a waste of money.

"I went to court to uphold the right of authors everywhere to protect their own original work. The proposed book took an enormous amount of my work and added virtually no original commentary of its own."

The ruling was a victory for Rowling and Warner Bros., the studio behind the Harry Potter films and owner of intellectual property rights, to the Potter books and movies.

Rowling's seven Potter books have sold nearly 400 million copies worldwide and have been translated into 64 languages.

(Xinhua/Agencies September 9, 2008)