Zuckerberg wins latest Facebook challenge

LONDON - A US judge has rejected a bid by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's long-time adversaries, to reopen a legal challenge over claims that Zuckerberg stole the concept of the site from them.

Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg

The two parties originally went to court last summer over allegations that Zuckerberg stole the Facebook concept and certain source codes from students Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss after Zuckerberg was recruited by HarvardConnect, a social networking site that would later become ConnectU.

A settlement was reached in February, but ConnectU subsequently asked for the case to be reopened, claiming that it had new evidence.

However, in his ruling yesterday, the presiding judge has sided with Facebook, saying that the original February ruling remains valid. "The court finds that the agreement is enforceable and orders its enforcement," the judge said.

In response, Facebook said: "We are happy that Judge Ware enforced the agreement settling our dispute with the ConnectU founders. The ConnectU founders understood the deal they made [in February], and we are gratified that the court rejected their false allegations of fraud.

"We were disappointed that we had to litigate the settlement, as we believed we were caught in the middle of a fee dispute between ConnectU's founders and its former counsel. Nevertheless, we can now consider this chapter closed and wish the Winklevoss brothers the best of luck in their future endeavours."

Market Reports

Get unprecedented new-business intelligence with access to ±±¾©Èü³µpk10’s new Market Reports.

Find out more

Enjoying ±±¾©Èü³µpk10’s content?

 Get unlimited access to ±±¾©Èü³µpk10’s premium content for your whole company with a corporate licence.

Upgrade access

Looking for a new job?

Get the latest creative jobs in advertising, media, marketing and digital delivered directly to your inbox each day.

Create an alert now

Partner content