Facebook legal ruling delayed - more information needed

New date of August 8th set by court, ConnectU given more time

25 July 2007 22:46 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

The judge in the attempted dismissal of the Facebook fraud case, heard in a Boston court room today, has said he needs more information about allegations that the idea behind the site was stolen from a rival social networking website.

The judge has given the ConnectU founders two weeks, until 8th August, to provide more information to back up their allegations of fraud, copyright infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets.

Seemingly upbeat considering the court appears to be taking ConnectU's allegations so seriously, in a statement following these initial legal proceedings Facebook announced:

"We are pleased with the outcome of the hearing today. We continue to disagree with the allegations that Mark Zuckerberg stole any ideas or code to build Facebook."

"We intend to honor the judge's request not to comment further in the media and will continue to vigorously defend this case in court."

The owner of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg and his business partners are facing the legal action over claims Zuckerberg stole the idea behind Facebook's billion dollar success story.

The action is being brought by three former Harvard classmates of Zuckerberg who claim he stole their idea, business plan and coding while he worked on their social-networking site ConnectU.

The three asked the court to shut down Facebook and transfer all its assets to them. Zuckerberg has always denied these claims and had asked that the case be dismissed.