Facebook sued for stealing data center designs

A British company that goes by the name of BladeRoom has filed suit against Facebook today, claiming that the social media platform had stolen its data center designs and not only used them in the construction of their new data center in Lulea, Sweden, but also released the designs to the public through Open Compute. According to BladeRoom, Facebook had gained insight into their patented data center technology in 2011, but a subsequent partnership was not made. Following that event, Facebook allegedly stole the designs and implemented them in their Lulea data center.

BladeRoom Group has filed suit against Facebook in San Jose, California today and while there aren’t many details available about the contents of the complaint, there seem to be serious accusations against the social media network giant. The Open Compute Project seems to be the main source of discontent, as Facebook should not have published the designs that belong and are copyrighted by BladeRoom as the platform has strict rules about that. The Open Compute Project aims to make open source technology and design available across the world for use by various companies, but it does not allow publication of patents and designs without the owner’s consents, which was not given, according to BladeRoom.

Facebook allegedly stole modular data center technology from the Group, through which the team at work on the Lulea data center even won a prize for quick implementation of the technology. If the allegations turn out to be true, Facebook will find itself in quite a predicament. Not only did the platform use designs that were not their to use, but chose to share these designs with others, without permission. Facebook and BladeRoom have not issued any official statements about the matter, but as the news gains hold, there should be at least some comments surfacing across the internet.