In federal court hearing on Tuesday, Facebook lawyer Lisa Simpson told US District Judge in Buffalo, New York, that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg may have signed a seven-year contract with New York businessman Paul Ceglia, granting him an ownership stake in what was then a fledging Web project.

According to a Bloomberg report, Simpson told the judge: “Whether he (Zuckerberg) signed this piece of paper, we’re unsure at this moment.”

Ceglia filed a lawsuit against Facebook last month, claiming that he had signed a contract with Zuckerberg in 2003. As per Ceglia, Zuckerberg was a Harvard student at that time, and was working on an early version of Facebook.

The lawsuit further says that Ceglia, for whom Zuckerberg was working, paid Zuckerberg $1,000 for “half-interest” in the company; and waited for until 2010 – that is, seven years later - to file his lawsuit.

As per Ceglia, Zuckerberg was hired by his company in 2003 to work on two separate business ventures – first, to develop and maintain a Web database for “the StreetFax Database;” and, second, to work on an already-in-progress project, “designed to offer the students of Harvard university access to a website similar to a live functioning yearbook with the working title of ‘The Face Book’.”

Meanwhile, going by a post-hearing statement released by Facebook on its website, the lawsuit filed by Ceglia is “completely frivolous,” and the social network intends fighting it “vigorously.”