Judge delays ruling in facebook.com case

A US federal judge has today delayed ruling on whether to throw out a lawsuit filed against the founder of Facebook.com.

Judge Douglas Woodlock said he needed more information about allegations that Mark Zuckerberg stole the ideas of the creators of a rival social networking website.

In Boston, Judge Woodlock gave ConnectU founders Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss - who are twin brothers - and Divya Narendra until August 8 to flesh out their allegations against Zuckerberg, which include fraud, copyright infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets.

The lawsuit, which also names several other founding members of Facebook, asks the court to issue an injunction against Facebook and give control of the company and its assets to ConnectU's founders.

Facebook said in a statement that it was pleased with the outcome of the hearing.

"We continue to disagree with the allegations that Mark Zuckerberg stole any ideas or code to build Facebook," the statement said. "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."

Facebook and ConnectU connect college students and others online. Both allow users to post profiles with pictures, biographies and other personal information and create extended networks of people at their schools or jobs or with similar interests.

ConnectU, based in Greenwich, Connecticut, originally filed suit in September 2004, but it was dismissed on a technicality in March and immediately refiled.

The lawsuit claims that in December 2002 the ConnectU founders began to develop a social networking site for the Harvard community called Harvard Connection.

In November 2003, the three asked Zuckerberg to complete software and database work on the site. They repeatedly asked him to finish before they graduated in June 2004, and Zuckerberg assured them he was working hard to complete it, the lawsuit says.

Zuckerberg launched Thefacebook.com in February 2004. ConnectU started its Web site in May of that year.

By beating ConnectU to the market, Facebook gained a huge advantage, the lawsuit claims.