Paul Ceglia, a web designer claiming to hold a six-year-old contract signed with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg, is suing for an 84% stake in the online giant. The terms of said agreement are laughably outrageous, but that hasn’t stopped a judge from slapping Zuckerburg and Facebook with a temporary restraining order preventing them from transferring any assets until the claim is resolved. Predictably, Ceglia is no stranger to the court system, having allegedly defrauded several customers out of a couple hundred grand worth of ‘wood pellets’.
This kind of legal glomming onto successful entrepreneurs is reminiscent of the tactics employed by one Scott Lewis, the infamous pond-scum patent-troll who held the Bodog domain name for ransom back in 2007. Understandably, we’re now frantically scouring the web to see if Lewis’ company, 1st Technology (as in ‘let someone else build the technology first, otherwise you’ll have nothing to attach your leeches to’), has branched out into the ‘wood pellet’ business. Read more.
