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Skype founders file lawsuit against eBay
The Associated Press , San Francisco, US | Thu, 09/17/2009 7:54 AM | Sci-Tech
A company owned by the founders of Skype has filed a copyright suit against the Internet phone service and parent eBay, an action that could crimp plans to sell Skype for about $2 billion to a group of private investors.
Joltid Ltd., owned by Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, filed the suit Wednesday in the Northern California U.S. District Court. They allege Skype violated an agreement related to the use of peer-to-peer communication technology that Skype licensed from Joltid for use in its software, which routes calls over the Web.
Friis and Zennstrom sold Skype to eBay for $2.6 billion in 2005 and left the company a couple of years later.
Joltid is seeking an injunction on Skype's use of the technology as well as damages it says could total more than $75 million per day.
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British Swords (not verified), EU — Thu, 09/17/2009 - 12:50pm
At last, two Brits giving a mighty US Corporation a broadside pounding and good luck to them. Criticism of profiteering is being levied against the inventors, but I love it; eBay signed a contract that it clearly did not read! It bought a company based on certain technology but did not buy the rights to that technology! I bet the geniuses who signed that order for eBay must have very red faces right now. Murmurs too that eBay's PayPal might not be in such good shape, having moved from the UK to Lichtenstein, renowned for its banking secrecy laws, to become a bank, so it could "capitalize" (make money from nowhere), when of course it is not a bank but a merchant card facility for the masses. With the recession biting and PayPal customers both making protection claims and having fraud refunded via their credit card companies (which PayPal has no choice but to honour), rumor is PayPal is on a very slippery slope. It would only take a few legal problems over the wholesale fraud on eBay and maybe this Californian corporate camel could be avoiding straws!