connectu

Seeking 'veritas' in Facebook's latest legal battle

3:14 p.m. PT: This post has been updated with the results of the hearing involving Facebook and 02138 Magazine.

There's a cliched old joke among the Ivy League set: how many Harvard students does it take to screw in a lightbulb? The answer: only one. He holds that bulb and the world revolves around him.

It's a somewhat fitting jab in the latest back-and-forth spat involving social-networking site Facebook's powerful legal team, as the skirmish has brought out the ugly sides of both the Palo Alto, Calif.-based dot-com and the Harvard alumni magazine attempting … Read more

ConnectU, Facebook spat resurfaces in San Jose courtroom

The lengthy legal fight between social-networking scion Facebook and onetime rival ConnectU isn't over yet. New developments in the dispute on Wednesday probed deeper into the question of exactly what happened in 2004, when both sites were early-stage start-ups run essentially out of Harvard University dorm rooms.

The best-known component of the court drama has been ConnectU's allegation that Zuckerberg pilfered the former's business plan while he was a student at Harvard with ConnectU founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (they're twins) and Divya Narendra. In a San Jose, Calif., courtroom on Wednesday, however, the conversation turned … Read more

CNET News.com feature: Judge unimpressed by case against Facebook

BOSTON--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 … Read more

Judge gives ConnectU founders two weeks to revise Facebook complaint

BOSTON--A federal judge in a Massachusetts district court gave the founders of college-based social networking site ConnectU two weeks to revise the complaint that they have filed against Facebook, its CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and four other early employees of the fast-growing social network. The ConnectU founders, twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and their fellow 2004 Harvard graduating classmate Divya Narendra, have accused Zuckerberg and his company of stealing their code and business plan when Zuckerberg was casually employed as a programmer for ConnectU in the 2003-2004 academic year.

Judge Douglas P. Woodlock, during the case's dismissal hearing on Wednesday … Read more

I love that dirty water--and that Facebook lawsuit

Tomorrow morning, I'll be heading from New York to Boston to sit in on the dismissal hearing for the lawsuit that social networking site ConnectU has filed against current Silicon Valley darling Facebook. It's a long-running drama that goes back to when the founders of both sites were students at Harvard, and no one's entirely sure how it's going to turn out.

I'll have a story on the subject on News.com very soon. In the meantime, here's what some other news outlets have been saying in the weeks leading up to the case: … Read more