Aaron Greenspan, founder and CEO of Think Computer Corporation, attended Harvard with Facebook cofounder Mark Zuckerberg.  Greenspan also happened to come up with a portal called houseSYSTEM, and a section within said portal was called "The Universal Face Book."

See the potential problem?  So did Greenspan.  Think wound up asking the United States Patent and Trademark Office to cancel trademarks issued to Facebook.

Now, however, "Think Computer Corporation and Facebook announced . . . that they have settled all outstanding claims, including all of Think’s claims related to Facebook’s registered trademarks," according to an official statement.

Zuckerberg and Greenspan both made gracious comments, too, with the first man saying, "Aaron and I studied together at Harvard and I’ve always admired his entrepreneurial spirit and love of building things.  I appreciate his hard work and innovation that led to building houseSYSTEM, including the Universal Face Book feature. . . .  We are pleased that we’ve been able to amicably resolve our differences."

The last "origin" dispute/lawsuit Facebook settled cost the company around $65 million in cash and stock options.

Generic usage of the term "Facebook" across the Harvard campus made it unable to be trademarked, something that Facebook CEO Zuckerberg managed to do in 2005. Aaron Greenspan hopes this contention will be sufficient to elicit a settlement out of Facebook, along with permission to use the Facebook name in the title of a self-published book.

The Sydney Morning Herald said Greenspan hasn’t talked to Zuckerberg since 2006. Greenspan’s Think Computer Corp website also shows he hasn’t forgotten the social networking site; the text "Inventors of The Facebook" appears on Think Computer’s home page.

"Think began using the term "The Facebook" to describe one of the components of its houseSYSTEM student portal at Harvard University in the summer of 2003," Greenspan said in a statement. "It launched the feature on September 19, 2003, several months before thefacebook.com began accepting new users on February 4, 2004."

"Think’s petition asks the USPTO to cancel the Facebook, Inc. trademark on three grounds: priority of use, genericness, and fraud committed on the agency itself," he continued.

Greenspan wants to capitalize on the Facebook name for his book, but a publishing firm would not accept the book with the Facebook trademark in the title. That led to his filing with the US Patent & Trademark Office.