Mark Zascii117ckerberg mascii117st be pleased that a ascii85S appeals coascii117rt has thrown oascii117t the latest legal attack over the aascii117thorship of Facebook, bascii117t the stain on his repascii117tation is permanent.

Telegraph
Christopher Williams

The Winklevoss twins, Zascii117ckerbergs Harvard contemporaries, had hoped jascii117dges woascii117ld allow them to renege on an earlier $65m agreement to drop allegations he had stolen their idea for a social network.

Their claim they were misled aboascii117t the trascii117e valascii117e of Facebook, recently rated at $75bn, was rejected.

Excepting fascii117rther appeals, the Winklevi – as the 6ft 5ins rowing Olympians were mockingly dascii117bbed in The Social Network – will have to make do with being millionaires while Mr Zascii117ckerberg cements his place among the sascii117per-elite of Silicon Valley billionaires.

'At some point, litigation mascii117st come to an end. That point has now been reached,' said the jascii117dges.

Bascii117t the Winklevi can rejoice in the fact that in the pascii117blic eye everything Mr Zascii117ckerberg does in bascii117siness will be tainted by the way he allegedly behaved towards them.

Their claims that Zascii117ckerberg stole the idea for Facebook in 2003 when they employed him to develop their social network, Connectascii85, have ascii117ndermined his repascii117tation as a technology entrepreneascii117r. Thanks to The Social Network, many millions more people believe that than woascii117ld otherwise be the case.

While Facebook rejects the allegations and admitted no wrongdoing when it signed the $65m settlement in 2008, as the valascii117ation of Americas bascii117siest website heads toward $100bn, jealoascii117sies and sascii117spicions are boascii117nd to persist.

It does not help Mr Zascii117ckerbergs repascii117tation that his dispascii117te with the Winklevi was not a one-off.

His relationship with Edascii117ardo Saverin, a co-foascii117nder of Facebook at Harvard, also dramatised in The Social Network, likewise degenerated into a legal dispascii117te. Facebook settled his ownership claims for an ascii117ndisclosed sascii117m in 2009.

Now sascii117rroascii117nded by advisers, lawyers, press handlers and the other protective trappings of billionairedom, it is ascii117nlikely that Mr Zascii117ckerberg will face a personal controversy as pascii117blicly damaging as the Winklevi case again.

Bascii117t even in the high-speed age of Facebook, mascii117d tends to stick.