Lawsuit Claims Facebook.com Idea Was Stolen
Posted July 25, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Facebook.com is facing legal troubles, as a federal judge delayed a ruling on Wednesday on whether to throw out a lawsuit filed against the website’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg.
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who are twins, and Divya Narendra have until August 8 th to flesh out their allegations that Zuckerberg defrauded them, committed copyright infringement and misappropriated trade secrets.
The three men formed ConnectU, which connects college students and others online. Both sites allow users to post profiles with pictures, biographies and other information.
In November of 2003, the three men asked Zuckerberg to complete software and database work on the ConnectU site.
Zuckerberg launched facebook.com in February 2004 and ConnectU followed shortly afterwards in May. The lawsuit claims that by beating ConnectU to the market, Facebook gained a huge advantage.
Judge Woodlock repeatedly asked for ConnectU’s founders to give specific details of shareholding distribution and other clauses of a contract they claim they had with Zuckerberg while all four attended Harvard, which they could not do.
The judge has ordered ConnectU’s lawyer to file a fresh plea and specify the facts supporting the allegations.
“Dorm room chit chat does not make a contract,” Woodlock said.
Facebook said in a statement on their website that it was pleased with the outcome.
“We continue to disagree with the allegations that Mark Zuckerberg stole any ideas or code to build Facebook,” says the statement. “We intend to honour the judge’s request not to comment further in the media and will continue to vigorously defend this case in court.”
ConnectU originally filed a suit in September 2004, but it was dismissed on a technicality in March and immediately re-filed.
