A judge sets back ConnectU's Facebook case

A rival social networking site is given two weeks to make its case that Facebook stole its ideas.

Published July 26, 2007 11:10AM (EDT)

Caroline McCarthy, News.com's able reporter at the scene, writes that a federal judge in Boston has set back social-networking site ConnectU's fight against Facebook. ConnectU's founders, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra, claim that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stole their technology and business plan while they were all undergraduates at Harvard. Zuckerberg went on to geeky fame and nearly certain billionaire status, while ConnectU's people ... well, they'll always have Harvard, right?

Responding to Facebook's request for a summary dismissal of the case, U.S. District Court Judge Douglas Woodlock ruled that several of ConnectU's claims could not be backed up, McCarthy reports.

Woodlock gave ConnectU two weeks to file a firmer version of its complaint. He also tossed off this quote to ConnectU's counsel, which I'm positive is a nice way of asking, "Is that all there is?": "You're really going to have to do this with particularity, because this is a most evanescent of explanations."

Facebook told reporters that it's "pleased" with the judge's ruling, and it once again defended the purity of Zuckerberg's lone brilliance in coming up with the site. At least so far, none of us can argue otherwise.


By Salon Staff

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