Winklevii Twins Lose to Facebook in Court -- Again

Losers

​Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, the preppy twins who sued Mark Zuckerberg saying he stole their Facebook idea, lost another court battle against the social networking giant. But no, this doesn't bring the high-profile and exhausting saga to an end.

A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel in San Francisco on Monday rejected the twins' request to review their claim that Zuckerberg defrauded them when they agreed to a settlement last year. Still, the duo is suing Facebook in a Boston court, alleging that the company's lawyers hid instant messages from them during litigation.

It's the latest loss for the twins, who have been relentlessly suing Zuckerberg since he started the social networking site in 2004 while the three were Harvard classmates. A $65 million settlement was reached, which gave the Winklevii some cash and a piece of the Facebook company.

Yet after the settlement was reached, Facebook was valued at $50 billion, and the twins claimed they got stiffed. They said Facebook had not accurately valued their share. The Winklevosses tried to back out of the settlement, demanding $100 million from Facebook.

That's when a San Francisco judge essentially told the twins to get over it; they had plenty of high-powered lawyers who advised them in the original settlement deal. There was no reason to believe that Zuckerberg had intentionally duped them, the court ruled.

It appears there's enough material now for a sequel to the 2010 film The Social Network, which dramatized the Facebook saga on the big screen.

Follow us on Twitter at @TheSnitchSF and @SFWeekly