Oh no, you're thinking, yet another cookie pop-up. Well, sorry, it's the law. We measure how many people read us, and ensure you see relevant ads, by storing cookies on your device. If you're cool with that, hit “Accept all Cookies”. For more info and to customize your settings, hit “Customize Settings”.

Review and manage your consent

Here's an overview of our use of cookies, similar technologies and how to manage them. You can also change your choices at any time, by hitting the “Your Consent Options” link on the site's footer.

Manage Cookie Preferences
  • These cookies are strictly necessary so that you can navigate the site as normal and use all features. Without these cookies we cannot provide you with the service that you expect.

  • These cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you. They perform functions like preventing the same ad from continuously reappearing, ensuring that ads are properly displayed for advertisers, and in some cases selecting advertisements that are based on your interests.

  • These cookies collect information in aggregate form to help us understand how our websites are being used. They allow us to count visits and traffic sources so that we can measure and improve the performance of our sites. If people say no to these cookies, we do not know how many people have visited and we cannot monitor performance.

See also our Cookie policy and Privacy policy.

This article is more than 1 year old

Facebook back in court fighting claims it nicked British data centre IP

UK-based BladeRoom's founder airs grievances

Mark Zuckerberg won't appear in front of Parliament, but Facebook is in the dock again this week as part of a long-running court case over the alleged theft of British trade secrets.

BladeRoom is a Cheltenham-based operation specialising in energy-efficient modular data centres. Founder Paul Rogers designed industrial kitchens and came up with what was claimed to be the world's first air-cooled server room – we covered their innovations in 2010.

Rogers told the Californian Northern District Court of San Jose this week that he spoke to Facebook under NDA from 2011 to 2013, and was appalled to see Facebook present what he believed to be BladeRoom technology as its own innovation in 2014.

BladeRoom was in talks with the power giant Emerson, and later discovered that Facebook had sold data centre technology to Emerson for its Luleå 2 data centre in Sweden. Facebook had contributed the know-how to the Open Compute Project, an initiative started by Facebook in 2011. OCP rules specify IP can only be donated with the owner's permission.

BladeRoom Group (and legal entity BripCo) filed litigation in 2015 (PDF) alleging misappropriation of trade secrets, and breach of contract (among other things). It's now gone to court – although most of the extensive docket is under seal, and much of what isn't has been redacted.

The UK biz has alleged that once Facebook handed the tech over to the OCP, it lost hundreds of millions of dollars in business. Google pulled out of negotiations with the company.

Facebook said it was developing modular technology long before it met with BladeRoom and will argue that Luleå 2 isn't as modular as BladeRoom has claimed.

Proceedings formally kicked off on Monday. Judge Edward Davita presided. BladeRoom claimed it's being "outlawyered" by Facebook, with 4,000 exhibits in play.

Facebook was sued by Yahoo! for patent infringement, but settled in 2012. More recently Facebook has been under fire for copying features from rival social network Snap. ®

 

Similar topics

Similar topics

Similar topics

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like