U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain threw out the lawsuit brought by Missy Chase Lapine, saying the books weren't similar except for their goal of hiding healthy food inside favorite meals of children.

However, the judge declined to rule on Ms. Lapine's claims against Jerry Seinfeld, who on David Letterman's show last year noted her three names and joked that people with three names -- including James Earl Ray and Mark David Chapman -- have turned out to be assassins. She said those claims should instead be filed in state court, where Ms. Lapine's lawyer, Howard Miller, said he planned to bring them.

"They are still very much alive," he said of those claims, along with claims against News Corp.'s HarperCollins that the publisher misappropriated information from Ms. Lapine's book, "The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids' Favorite Meals," when it rejected her proposal. Ms. Seinfeld's cookbook, "Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food," was published by Collins, a HarperCollins imprint.