September 07, 2009

By Mike Havey (View author info)

The founders of Skype last night were heading for a legal battle with the new owners of the internet telephony business over the technology that powers it. A court case between eBay, the owner, and Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom -- a fight that eBay admitted could shut down the service -- is to be heard next June...... Mr Friis and Mr Zennstrom, who fell out with eBay over its running of Skype and whose attempts to buy back the company this year were rebuffed, have said that they are determined to defend their rights. EBay paid $2.6 billion for Skype in 2005 but did not buy the core technology, licensing it instead from Joltid, Mr Friis and Mr Zennstrom's company. After the pair left Skype, they allege, eBay executives began to alter the code used in the technology in breach of the licence. In March this year, Skype sued in an attempt to settle the dispute and Joltid countersued. A person familiar with the case said: "This issue will continue whatever happens to Skype, as no one expects Joltid simply to sit back and allow its technology, rights and value to be damaged." Skype, which started in 2002, allows users to make calls from their computers to landlines, mobile phones and other computers. At its heart is the peer-to-peer technology created by its founders, who also devised Kazaa, the file-sharing software. The service has continued to grow rapidly. Skype's second-quarter revenue increased 25 per cent on the same period last year to $170 million. It added 37.3 million users, bringing the total to 480.5 million and making it the most widely used international calling system in the world.

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