Facebook in court

Facebook's founder is facing a lawsuit. These are the details from The New York Times:

"The owners of a rival social networking Web site are trying to shut down Facebook.com, charging in a federal lawsuit that Facebook's founder stole their ideas while they were students at Harvard.

The three founders of ConnectU say Mark Zuckerberg agreed to finish computer code for their site, but repeatedly stalled and eventually created Facebook using their ideas.

The lawsuit's allegations against Zuckerberg include fraud, copyright infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets. It asks the court to shutter Facebook and give control of the company and its assets to ConnectU's founders.

Facebook has responded by asking a judge to dismiss the lawsuit. A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Boston.

Facebook started in 2004, a few months before ConnectU went online, and now has 31 million users, compared with about 70,000 users for ConnectU, based in Greenwich, Conn. Last year, Facebook turned down a $1 billion buyout offer from Yahoo Inc."

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However it does not seem that the suit is going in the complainants' direction. From The New York Times again:
"The judge's message Wednesday to ConnectU over its intellectual property lawsuit against fellow social-networking site Facebook was clear: show us the evidence.... Massachusetts Federal Judge Douglas P. Woodlock repeatedly stressed that there was simply not enough evidence to back up allegations that Zuckerberg, who had performed programming work for ConnectU while it was in development, had pilfered the start-up's business model and code. Facebook now boasts more than 30 million members worldwide, while ConnectU stands at well under 100,000.

"Claims must have a factual basis." --Judge Douglas P. Woodlock
Woodlock asked ConnectU's counsel, led by John F. Hornick of the Washington, D.C.-based firm Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett, & Dunner, to revise its court complaint before the case could go forward. "Claims must have a factual basis," the judge said. The allegations, which ranged from breach of confidence to fraud to misappropriation of trade secrets, comprised a "most evanescent of explanations," Woodlock said. He gave ConnectU's founders--Divya Narendra and twin brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss--until August 8 to provide a revised complaint. He also gave Facebook two weeks after that date to respond.

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