Judge Unimpressed by ConnectU's Case Against Facebook

Dorm room chit chat does not a legal contract make.

The judge's message Wednesday to ConnectU over its intellectual property lawsuit against fellow social-networking site Facebook was clear: show us the evidence.

ConnectU, which accuses Facebook of stealing its ideas, has been in legal pursuit of its rival, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and early employees Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, Andrew McCollum and Christopher Hughes for nearly three years, and there still isn't an end in sight.

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.

Consequently, anyone who was hoping for a definitive answer from Wednesday's dismissal hearing for the ongoing legal tussle was likely left disappointed, as the case will probably not see much further development until the fall.

Woodlock also indicated that even the strongest of ConnectU's claims, the count of copyright infringement, is still on a shaky foundation. The reason, he said, is that the majority of the allegations date back to the days before either Facebook or ConnectU was a formal corporation, when all the founders of both companies were students at Harvard.

"It's gossamer thin on the question of contract," Woodlock said. Indeed, no formal deals were signed between Zuckerberg and the ConnectU founders, and the "paper trail" is limited to e-mails and telephone voice-mail messages that Woodlock recommended the plaintiffs spell out more effectively in their revised complaint.

http://www.nytimes.com/cnet/CNET_2100-1030_3-6198891.html?
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