FACEBOOK founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg is caught up in a fresh legal dispute with a former college friend.
Aaron Greenspan has filed a petition with the US Patent and Trademark Office to cancel the social networking website's legal entitlements to its name.
Mr Greenspan, 25, claims his ex-classmate Mr Zuckerberg, 23, shouldn't have been able to trademark the name "Facebook" in 2005 as it had been used generically at Harvard for decades.
The term "face book" was used to describe any paper or electronic tool that displayed the faces of students and faculty, Mr Greenspan said.
He added that he used the name "Face Book" for his own project, houseSYSTEM, in September 2003. Four months later, Mr Zuckerberg launched thefacebook.com.


Mr Greenspan claims he has email evidence to show Mr Zuckerberg knew about the houseSYSTEM "face book" feature and even considered merging it into his own growing network.
Facebook now has over 70 million users worldwide and has been valued at up to $US15 billion ($16.27 billion).
Mr Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire in the world and the youngest self-made billionaire in history, according to Forbes magazine.
He also has a growing string of disgruntled former classmates lauinching legal action against him.
Three former Harvard students have been involved in legal disputes with Facebook since 2004. Twin brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and their partner Divya Narendra alleged in a federal lawsuit that Mr Zuckerberg stole their idea after he was hired to work on their social networking website ConnectU.
The New York Times reported earlier this month that Facebook and the ConnectU founders are negotiating a settlement.
Mr Greenspan said he might also consider a settlement, but his main goal is to self-publish a "memoir" about the experience later this month.
He plans to name this book, Authoritas: One student's Harvard admissions and the founding of the Facebook era.
Websites will not let Mr Greenspan advertise the book due to concerns about using the Facebook trademark.