A UK firm that specializes in building modular data centers from prefabricated parts has filed a law suit against Facebook containing some serious allegations. The suit claims the social media giant has not only stolen and used BladeRoom Group Ltd’s designs to build its own data centers, but has also released them to the public as well, via its Open Compute initiative.

BladeRoom says it first contacted Facebook in 2011 with an offer to use its technique to build data centers, but that a deal was never agreed. Instead, the UK firm alleges that Facebook stole its ideas and used them to build a new data center in Lulea, Sweden, before launching Open Compute and letting other companies ‘borrow’ the technique as well.

That’s apparently BladeRoom’s biggest point of contention, since it says in the lawsuit that “Facebook’s misdeeds might never have come to light had it decided that simply stealing BRG’s intellectual property was enough.”

Facebook launched the Open Compute Project back in 2011 in a bid to make open-source technology and data center design available to anyone who wants to use it. It did so because data center infrastructure costs billions of dollars to build and maintain, and the initiative allows big tech firms like Facebook, Google and Microsoft to collaborate on ways to reduce those costs and make them more efficient. However, the project forbids the publication of patents and designs without the owner’s consent, and that permission was not given, according to BladeRoom.

BladeRoom added in its lawsuit that it carefully guards all of its trade secrets and is demanding that Facebook cough up for “all profits, cost savings, and reputational enhancement” it has gained since it allegedly stole the company’s designs.

That could mean Facebook has to shell out a considerable sum of cash, should the allegations turn out to be true. Nevertheless, one can’t help but wonder if BladeRoom Group is just another troll, given the speed with which Facebook allegedly managed to copy the firm’s designs and establish Open Compute, just a few months after it first saw them.

If it comes to trial, the case will hinge on BladeRoom’s ability to proof that Facebook really did copy its designs – and that’s unlikely to be an easy task with so many other tech firms already building and selling pre-fabricated data centers.

Photo Credit: Nukamari via Compfight cc