Critical.
Authoritative.
Strategic.
Subscribe to CIO Magazine »

Skype founders sue Skype

The dispute surrounds the licensing of peer-to-peer technology to Skype

With a similar legal battle playing out in the U.K., a company owned by Skype's founders has filed suit against Skype in the U.S.

Joltid, the company owned by Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, filed a copyright infringement suit in California against Skype, eBay, Silver Lake Partners and others.

The dispute concerns an agreement that eBay made when it bought Skype in 2005. The acquisition did not include Skype's peer-to-peer networking technology, which is owned by Joltid and was licensed to Skype.

Earlier this year Joltid terminated the license agreement. Joltid and Skype have since argued over the validity of the termination in courts in England. Further arguments are scheduled there in the middle of next year.

"Joltid terminated its license agreement with Skype as a result of breaches by Skype. Skype has infringed Joltid’s copyrights,” Joltid said in a statement. “Joltid will vigorously enforce its copyrights and other intellectual property rights in all of the technologies it has innovated."

In the meantime, eBay has said it's developing an alternative technology to get around the licensing issue.

The U.S. lawsuit seeks an injunction against Skype and statutory damages for copyright infringement. Representatives for eBay and Skype did not respond to requests for comment.

Earlier this month, eBay agreed to sell a 65 percent stake in Skype for US$1.9 billion to a group of investors led by Silver Lake.

The deal, expected to close in the fourth quarter, values Skype at $2.75 billion, just over the $2.6 billion that eBay paid for it in 2005.

Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.

More about: eBay, Silver Lake Partners, Skype
References show all

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the CIO comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Coverage
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Tags: lawsuits, legal, Skype, softphones, VoIP
Latest Blog Posts
Whitepapers
  • Gartner MarketScope for Application Life Cycle Management
    Organisations adopting agile practices, utilising global and distributed teams, or exploiting complex processes and technologies are most likely to benefit from using ALM tools to plan, manage and report on their development activities. This MarketScope assesses the market offerings and their providers.
    Learn more »
  • Collaborative software delivery: Managing today’s complex environment to improve software quality
    IBM Rational Team Concert software can help simplify, automate and govern the delivery process. Based on the open standards Jazz platform, it offers a lean collaborative application life cycle management (ALM) solution with integrated planning, work-item tracking, version control, build management and reporting.
    Learn more »
  • The mobile print enterprise - How IT consumerisaton is driving anytime, anywhere printing
    The widespread adoption of smartphones and tablets, across Android, BlackBerry and Apple iOS platforms, has broadened the effectiveness of professional workers to remotely support business requirements. A continued reliance on printing amongst many businesses means IT must provide enterprise mobile printing capabilities that are secure and reliable. This not only ensures employees remain productive but also allows mobile printing to be tracked and controlled – vital in an era when many businesses face financial, environmental and security concerns. Read more.
    Learn more »
All whitepapers
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to Invitation only events CIO, reports & analysis.
Recent comments