This is a tip for your blog. I predict this case could be the second of the one-two punch against lowering the “clear and convincing” standard Microsoft challenged. Facebook is challenging it too in this case.

It is pretty unbelievable that this case has not gotten more publicity. However, as I wondered why and dug into it, I discovered that Facebook sealed practically everything, so no one could read their position, except through Leader’s responses. It appears that Leader’s attorney Paul Andre chose not to contest all the pointless sealing so as not to create disputes that would delay the trial. However, now that the trial record is complete, I and others have started digging at PACER. What we have uncovered is mindboggling.

I have been tracking this Leader v. Facebook case for a long time. I have kept expecting to see you pick up on it given the popularity of the subject matter…. Facebook (and their attack on privacy). You might want to investigate. It’s in appeal now. It would appear that after all this time Zuckerberg is finally getting outted. I never did buy his claim to have invented Facebook in “one or two weeks” while studying for finals. The Leader inventor’s son Max was in the dorm next to Zuck (!!!) and appears to be in medical school now. I’m guessing from the trial records that Zuck hacked a Leader white paper from the inventor’s son’s Harvard email account (maybe even the very night of the infamous hacking of student photos depicted in The Social Network movie) that described McKibben’s invention which Zuck just mimicked and launched a month later with the help of his Accel Partners and Peter Thiel handlers. Think about it. This finally makes sense. Zuck didn’t have enough time to invent all that stuff that quickly, unless he was just implementing a blueprint laid out for him. Some of the illustrations in the white paper are the same as in the patent. There’s even strong evidence that Facebook had to wait until the Leader patent published in the summer of 2004 to add the “groups functionality” in Facebook because they couldn’t figure out how to do it without the patent.

Some bloggers are picking up the trail with a lot of good links to the trial record.
http://facebook-technology-origins.blogspot.com/
http://www.scribd.com/ppratt357
http://blog.patentcalls.com/2011/07/28/facebooks-patent-trial-victory-tested-on-appeal/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Patent-Connections-Articles+(Patent+News+%26+IP+News+»+Articles)
http://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/print-edition/2011/08/19/leader-technologies-forging-on-with.html

Hope this helps.

Kathy Craine