April 16 - Facebook and creator Mark Zuckerberg were hit with another lawsuit over the origin of the social networking website. The lawsuit seeks, among other things, to take back legal rights to the name “Facebook.” Aaron Greenspan, a Harvard classmate of Zuckerberg around the 2004 launch of Facebook, filed the lawsuit with the United States Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday.
Greenspan claims that his online dating and social networking site houseSYSTEM debuted months before thefacebook.com, now Facebook. Greenspan also provided substantive evidence, including a campus-wide email discussing the next phase of houseSYSTEM called “the Face Book,” to support his infringement claims. Months later in 2004, according to Greenspan, Zuckerberg created the second largest social networking site with the same name that now has over 30 million users worldwide.
It is unclear whether Facebook will go forward with this lawsuit or settle out of court. Should it follow recent trends, the company likely will settle out of court, as it did with creators of the social networking site ConnectU. The company settled within the last few weeks over claims of unfair business practices and stealing ConnectU’s business model from the two founders, also Zuckerberg classmates.
Chritic.com reported here of possible evidence of infringement claims here.
The New York Times reports here.
