The founders of ConnectU have been given two weeks to back-up the complaints they have filed against social networking giant Facebook.
Twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and their fellow 2004 Harvard graduating classmate Divya Narendra, have accused Zuckerberg and his company of stealing their code and business plan when Zuckerberg was casually employed as a programmer for ConnectU in the 2003-2004 academic year.
Judge Douglas P. Woodlock, during the case's dismissal hearing on Wednesday afternoon, requested that the plaintiffs revise their complaint and refile it by August 8, after which point Facebook has an additional two weeks to file for a dismissal. The reason, the judge said, was that there simply was not a factual basis to the majority of the ten claims listed by ConnectU in its original complaint.
"You're really going to have to do this with particularity," Woodlock said to ConnectU's counsel, "because this is a most evanescent of explanations."
Woodlock pressed a lawyer for the former Harvard students to define the exact terms of their commercial relationship with Zuckerberg, including whether it was purely a verbal contract.
"Dorm room chitchat does not make a contract, so I want to see it," Woodlock told the courtroom.
The case is in the spotlight due to the celebrity of 23-year-old Zuckerberg and the surging popularity of Facebook, one of Silicon Valley's hottest start-up companies. Facebook has seen membership jump 25 per cent to above 30 million since May.
"We are pleased with the outcome of the hearing today," FaceBook said in an official statement to the press. "We continue to disagree with the allegations that Mark Zuckerberg stole any ideas or code to build Facebook. 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."
The lawsuit was first filed in September 2004 by ConnectU, a successor to Harvard Connection, against Facebook, Zuckerberg and his co-founders.
Court papers filed by ConnectU state that Zuckerberg agreed to work for Harvard Connection founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra, then dragged his feet before launching Thefacebook.com in February 2004.
Thefacebook.com was set up as a social site for Harvard students but had already spread to other US college campuses, attracting hundreds of thousands of members by the time the lawsuit was first filed.
ConnectU's lawyer denied reports that it wanted Facebook to close.
"There's been some inaccuracies in the press that ConnectU wants to shut Facebook down. ConnectU wants to correct that," lawyer John Hornick told the judge.
AAP's Julie Masis contributed to this report.
