U.S.-based social network Facebook took yet another hit on the chin today in its legal fight against its German rival StudiVZ, owned by German media group Georg von Holtzbrinck. 

A state court in Cologne, where the German subsidiary of Facebook had instituted an action against German competitor StudiVZ in April for allegedly “stealing intellectual property,” today ruled in favor of the defendant StudiVZ, saying that nothing pointed to fraudulent imitation. According to the ruling, the two portals “show similarities which cannot be overlooked,” but for fraudulent imitation the defendant must have tried to obscure the origin of the portal. The developers of StudiVZ did not have this intent, because at the time of StudiVZ’s launch (November 2005) Facebook enjoyed very little awareness in Germany. Facebook only really became known in Germany with the launch of the German version in March 2008, the court said. Furthermore, Facebook only decided to take legal action against StudiVZ after Facebook had decided to enter the German market.

This was Facebook’s second set-back against StudiVZ. Late last year StudiVZ won the first round against Facebook when a court in California gave the two parties one year to settle their dispute out of court.

Today’s ruling was, however, not the final round. Facebook could still pull the iron out of the fire, because the ruling has no legal force and Facebook has one month in which to appeal.