Federal Judge Looks at ConnectU vs. Facebook Docket, Tells Plaintiff To Get Some Evidence
July 26, 2007 |
The court hearing of ConnectU’s case against Facebook (more particularly, Facebook’s frontman, Mark Zuckerberg) went on as scheduled yesterday. Judge Douglas P Woodlock presided.
And he laid a preliminary verdict out just as predicted here right here at Profy: He saw no solid evidence of illegalities concerning Facebook’s founding or its creator’s actions during establishment.
Woodlock found there to be scant proof to work on the “majority of the ten claims listed by ConnectU in its original complaint” and, according to CNET’s Caroline McCarthy, “requested that the plaintiffs revise their complaint and refile it by August 8th,” after which – if ConnectU moves forward with an official revision to the suit – Facebook will have “an additional two weeks to file for a dismissal.”
The relatively brief afternoon court session was, if uneventful, quite an amusing one. At least the highlights appear to be so.
While the judge didn’t lambaste the plaintiffs for wasting his time or that of the court’s, he did go so far as to encourage ConnectU’s counsel to work out a more convincing and weighty argument, saying: “You’re really going to have to do this with particularity, because this is the most evanescent of explanations.” By explanations, the judge was referring to the list of ten claims presented in the complaint.
As expected, the court – this one gathered under federal jurisdiction – more or less cast the case aside as one with little grounding, and interestingly enough one that Facebook’s defense did not hesitate to point out was an attempt to gain points in the PR department by insisting on reissuing the complaint in a very public forum.
That point, however, is somewhat of a weak one upon close inspection. If one considers the fact that ConnectU has been after Zuckerberg and Facebook even before the rival(s) hit the big time, one can conclude that they arguably are not simply out to make the most of the spectacle they’ve created. Of course, we’ll likely never know the true motive behind ConnectU’s persistence. In the end, it doesn’t matter much at all anyway.
Whatever the case may indeed be, it’s definitely time to wrap this conflict up for good. If in three years’ time ConnectU’s founders have been unable to get far with their complaint, it’s not likely they’ll see progress now. Time to call it quits, guys. There’s a point at which what could in fact be perceived as a noble effort crosses over into the land of the annoying and irritating. As of this moment, ConnectU’s right at the border.
