Jealousy is a curse. The whole thing just feels like a bunch of kids bitching over who did what to who etc... Facebook is popular but its also an economic gaping hole.

Its a sin how all these little kids are worried that daddy's silver spoon and thier trust fund won't last forever.

One guy has a same idea and failed to make it work so therefore the guy that made it work stole from him. What rubbish, if he had the same idea before him and set up a company using it etc why wasn't his site the big daddy of social networking now instead of something that isn't known by anyone.

As for the claiming that he's out by billion's thats trash as well, facebook.com makes 0 money of me, anyone using the site from networks I control, or any of my friends because we all block their ads so they arnt even displayed. Facebook while it may make some money certainly hasnt made its creator a billionaire.

Paris, because we all know she's the kind of person to throw a temper tantrum to get some money ;)

Haven't we been here like 3 times in the past 2 years? I'm sure last year there was mass hysteria, court cases in us/canada, facebook petitions where they thought that bloke would shut down or take over facebook? get over it, if it changes hands people will still use it till the next best thing comes along. if he stole the idea and it can be proved in court then the owners obviously a muppet who should cover their tracks better, or more importantly should get some ideas of their own.

mines the one with the old man pipe in it. ba humbug. I like facebook like the next person but I've slowly stopped using it, just logging on to check emails because people don't seem to know how to use a normal email client it would seem.

More boring merkins arguing in public over nothing.

Don't you just wish they would get a life instead of looking for someone to sue?

They may have been using the term "Face Book" for decades; people have been using the term "Windows" for centuries!

A university that uses as a principle text book "The Prince" as a key part of a degree course in how to do things so wrong in the real world it is plain stupid , one should expect no less then many an incompetent student from this advanced institution behaving as blood sucking vampires to feed and leech of the success of others as that is the inherent and basic culture that is brainwashed into all it's graduates !

Actually, Mark stole the Idea from me. I designed an S&M based social networking site called faecbook.com about a month before facebook was started. Then one day, out of the blue, Mark Zuckerberg actually abseilled thru the window of my office, and stole a USB key containing it while swinging tarzan-style past my desk. The lawyers have been informed.

So none of the commenters, or the author of the piece, are willing to consider that perhaps Zucker-whatsit-bitch might have actually stolen his idea from others, and that now those others finally have the resources to go after him? That perhaps, just PERHAPS, it takes a few years to acquire the resources to start a lawsuit in the USA, because that kind of action takes hundreds of thousands? That the law in these types of cases heavily favours the rich thanks to the kind of delay tactics that can be used by some parties to make things too expensive to continue?

No, of course not. It's easier to blame the victims (if they are victims) than it is to actually analyse the evidence or [gasp] even wait for the results of a court case to determine the truth of the matter.

Yep, sounds like tabloid journalism to me. Nice to see it's in the "Public Sector:Law" section rather than the "Bootnotes" section. I know that I'm supposed to take this kind of piece oh-so-seriously when it's not in bootnotes. Kevin said so!

Personally, they can all go to hell. I'm not going to get rich from this crap, so why should I care? Other, of course, than a firm and naive belief in a justice system that is supposed to weed fact from fiction, and a cynical belief that the press isn't perhaps as accurate or balanced as we might like them to be.

I thought of FB first!

'nough said!

String 'em up, I say. It's the only language they understand.

Well, a rowing team contains at least six people, so I guess we have... 3 lawsuits to go?

Honestly, I have no love for Zuckerberg but when every no-necked sports scholarship moron at Harvard starts shoving the nerd around trying to steal his lunch money, it starts to look like a bad teen movie.

I was in Harvard visiting a friend in the summer of 2002. We were discussing some software in a coffee shop and my friend was disagreeing with me about how to perform a certain task. I said "Speak to the handbook, because the facebook ain't listening". I clearly remember a large exclamation mark appear above the head of a nerdy guy sitting nearby. I think it's time to speak to my lawyer.

but dismissed it, who want to spend time accumulating virtual friends? All telling people at the party that the party was good.

Dam my arrogance!

Give the people what they want, just don't ask them what they want.

It's not like Facebook is some sort of original invention anyway.

Mixi (http://mixi.jp/) started at about the same time in Japan, early 2004, and it's the same as Facebook -- in fact better and much less annoying. It's unlikely that each site knew about the other, not least because Mixi is completely in Japanese and requires that you negotiate a set of incomprehensible forms before you can even view the site.

Livejournal predates both by five years (started in 1999 according to Wikipedia). It has the same essential features -- blogs, lists of friends, photos, etc.

Did the ever get it recognised though? I thought it had been ruled as a generic term? Certainly all the latest stuff on the Microsoft website has the TM after the full Product name, for example "Microsoft® Windows Vista™"

If Windows was trademarked surly it would be Microsoft® Windows™ Vista™ as it was with all the other products before the 2004/5 rulings.

Each of these hundreds of crap "products" is a different shade of the same basic greenish brown color. The selection of the ones that hit it big is essentially random and can't be honestly taken credit for.

That being said, this lawsuit is a big pile of Smiling Faeces as well. It's like saying "hey, it was my idea to buy a lottery ticket at that 7-11 down the street, I want my half"