CONTINUED:
Facebook's court day has dawned

Naming Facebook, Zuckerberg and early Facebook employees Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, Andrew McCollum and Christopher Hughes as defendants, the case stands primarily on a charge of copyright infringement. Also included are charges of breach of actual or implied contract, misappropriation of trade secrets, fraud, breach of confidence and several other accusations.

Within a month, Facebook had filed a motion to dismiss the refiled ConnectU suit. The hearing today will determine whether Facebook gets its way or the case goes forward. Both parties have yet to release official statements pertaining to the hearing.

Despite the backstory's semblance to screenplay fodder, the outcome is anything but scripted, at least for now. Legal experts were hesitant to comment on the potential result of the hearing, possibly because it's wholly unclear as to whether the case will be dismissed again or if ConnectU's complaint will fare better this time. It's pretty complicated, considering that the deals crucial to both parties' arguments were sealed in dorm rooms, not boardrooms. There simply isn't the kind of paper trail that could easily augur an outcome.

"When you're 19 or 20, and working on things with other college students in the absence of legal documents and as a fun project that has some business potential, there's a lot of messiness that can happen," Smith explained. That "messiness" might be what pushes the case forward because it's just not that easy to dismiss it outright.

Add that to the fact that Facebook has indicated that it may be taking this seriously, judging by how quickly the company filed a motion to dismiss the case. The social-networking site has been widely buzzed about as potentially heading for an initial public offering or a multibillion-dollar acquisition soon. A high-profile lawsuit is not what a company wants to have around in that kind of situation, and even if Facebook ultimately emerged victorious, the court battle could unearth some not-so-savoury details about the company's early days.

But on the other hand, Facebook is Silicon Valley's favoured child these days. The court might simply see the Winklevosses and Narendra as jealous of Zuckerberg and his team's success, and eager for a slice of the company's revenue.

"There are just too many things, in my view, that just look bad for the [claimants]," Inside Facebook's Smith said. "In particular, there has been a period of three years of inactivity on the legal front. They have chosen not to pursue this matter until it was clear that there was something to be gained from it."

ConnectU also largely lies fallow now; Smith speculates that no real work has been performed on the site since 2005, giving the impression that its administrators gave up long ago. Co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, meanwhile, have bigger fish to fry: they're both training for a shot at the 2008 Olympic rowing team, and earlier this month, they nabbed gold medals in the heavyweight eight event and silver medals in the heavyweight four at the Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Ultimately, most of those in attendance will be walking into the Boston courthouse with no real idea of how or when the case will end. But one thing's for sure: if it goes through, this will be a hot one for the press.

"When you combine this kind of fascination with Facebook as a product with the media's inherent fascination with young CEOs [and with] college dorm room legal drama, it just makes for a popular story," Smith said. But we still don't know if this potential drama will even survive the dismissal hearing.