Paul D. Ceglia, a man from New York, filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court of New York against Facebook Inc. claiming ownership of 84 percent of the shares of this social networking website.

The State Court, under the leadership of Judge Thomas Brown, issued a temporary restraining order, blocking Zuckerberg and Facebook “from transferring, selling, assigning any assets, stocks, bonds, owned, possessed and/or controlled by the defendants”, until a hearing that will take place on July 9.

Facebook took the case to the Federal Court in an attempt to get the restraining order cancelled.

Facebook Spokesman, Barry Schnitt reported that he knows that this suit is “completely frivolous”. He also added that Facebook will fight back “vigorously”.

Ceglia claimed that he had a share in a contract with Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg in 2003. This contract stated that Ceglia would design and develop a website that would eventually become a social-networking giant. The contract gave Ceglia the right to receive a $1,000 fee and a 50 percent stake in the final product, TheFacebook.com. The contract also entitled Ceglia an additional 1 percent stake per day, until the website is launched, which is 84 percent as of February 4, 2004.

Facebook Inc. is estimated to worth more than $6.5 billion.