On Friday, Facebook pressed charges against studiVZ, a Germany-based social networking website; the latter was accused of having copied the former’s interface.

Mark Howitson, deputy general counsel at Facebook, said Facebook has been so successful thanks to the "unique look and feel of both the site and user interface." He said studiVZ’s lack of originality and fairplay were very disappointing to him and his colleagues.

studiVZ people feel differently, as they consider Facebook’s move to be fear driven, rather than intellectual property protection oriented. Marcus Riecke, CEO of studiVZ, said Facebook is trying to prevent his company from developing its website on the German market, because, up to this point, it hasn’t managed to do so well in this particular country. In the same statement, he wraps everything up in a few words, saying that Facebook’s approach to business seems to be: "If you can’t beat them, sue them."

According to e-Consultancy, studiVZ’s launch took place back in 2005; one year later, Facebook was considering the possibility to acquire the German website. However, the company was later on sold to Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck.

So far, studiVZ has been doing very well, as its network has managed to bring together more than 10 million registered members in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Facebook has had some experience with copyright infringement cases; however, in the 2008 suit, the company was not the one to start the legal action. ConnectU filed a suit against Facebook, accusing CEO Mark Zuckerberg of stealing its ideas.

And with regard to finding a bit too much inspiration in the work of others, there have been some opinions that Facebook's redesign, scheduled to be launched today, has borrowed quite a few of social networking aggregator FriendFeed’s ideas.