A judge last summer called the ConnectU founders' claims that Mark Zuckerberg had used code written while employed by them to create Facebook "tissue thin." Yesterday, in the final ruling before Facebook's lawyers decided to settle, a higher court disagreed and rejected Facebook's call for a dismissal. According to the appeals court ruling, Facebook's defense arguments were "either unavailing, or inadequately developed, or both. We reject them out of hand and, for the reasons elucidated above, we reverse the order of dismissal." Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg, unwilling to go on with the case, chose to settle.

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