BOSTON - A federal judge on Wednesday delayed ruling on whether to throw out a lawsuit filed against the founder of Facebook.com, saying he needed more information about allegations that Mark Zuckerberg stole the ideas of the creators of a rival social networking website.
Judge Douglas Woodlock gave ConnectU founders Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss -- who are twin brothers -- and Divya Narendra until Aug. 8 to flesh out their allegations against Zuckerberg, which include fraud, copyright infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets.
The lawsuit also names several other founding members of Facebook and asks the court to 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 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 website in May of that year. By beating ConnectU to the market, Facebook gained a huge advantage, the lawsuit claims.
Woodlock repeatedly asked lawyers for ConnectU's founders to give specific details of shareholding distribution and other clauses of a contract they say they had with Zuckerberg while at Harvard, which they could not do Wednesday.
"Zuckerberg agreed to finish the code and become a member of the Connection team helping to get the website launched,'' ConnectU attorney John Hornick said. In return, Zuckerberg was to become one of four shareholders of the company, he said.
The judge, however, was not satisfied and ordered Hornick to file a fresh plea and specify the facts supporting the allegations.
"Dorm room chit chat does not make a contract,'' Woodlock said.
The judge also questioned individual liability of other defendants in the case who are accused of using stolen trade secrets and code to help Facebook set up operations.
"Are they being properly sued here?'' Woodlock asked in court, adding that the allegations fail to show that the defendants were involved in copyright violation.
"You haven't told me anything other than there's something out there,'' Woodlock said.
"There have been too much preliminary skirmishes in this case by too much posturing,'' the judge said. "The purpose of litigation is not to resolve the suit, but rather to gain leverage for settlement.''
Hornick said those individuals were named in the lawsuit because there was no corporate entity in the initial stages of Facebook operations that could assume legal responsibility. He said the social networking site's holding company, Facebook Inc., was formed much later.
