Skype founders vs Skype: 'You've violated our patents'

Joltid, a peer-to-peer software company established by Skype's founders, filed a copyright suit against Skype on Wednesday alleging Joltid's technology is being infringed on by Skype users "in the United States at least 100,000 times each day".

Just the latest in an ongoing licence dispute between the popular VoIP service and its developers, the lawsuit, filed in Northern California US District Court, seeks an injunction and damages, which Joltid "reasonably believes are amassing at a rate of $75m daily", according to the suit.

Also listed as defendants are Skype's current owner eBay, as well as investors in a consortium that earlier this month signed a deal with eBay to acquire a 65 per cent stake in Skype, with eBay retaining 35 per cent.

"Skype has infringed Joltid's copyrights," a company spokesman said in a statement. "Joltid will vigorously enforce its copyrights and other intellectual property rights in all of the technologies it has innovated."

"Their allegations and claims are without merit and are founded on fundamental legal and factual errors," an eBay spokesman said in a statement.

The lawsuit has the potential to at least complicate the ongoing sale of Skype. In the past, however, eBay has said it's working on its own software to replace what it gets from Joltid.

In 2006, eBay bought Skype for $2.6bn, but co-founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom retained the rights to Skype's key peer-to-peer technology - Global Index Software - via the Joltid company they formed.

Joltid terminated its licence for the software after learning that Skype had allegedly acquired unauthorised versions of the source code, made unauthorised modifications, and disclosed the software to third persons, according to the lawsuit.

The two companies have been involved in a separate lawsuit in the UK over that license termination, but the case isn't set to go to trial until June 2010. Referring to that suit, eBay's SEC filing regarding the sale of Skype says "consummation of the deal was subject to 'no settlement of the pending litigation with Joltid Limited having been effected without the consent of the Buyer (subject to certain limitations).'"

The other defendants in the suit filed on Wednesday are Silver Lake Partners, Index Ventures Management, Michaelangelo Volpi, Andreessen Horowitz, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. This lawsuit was first reported on Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal.

Original article: Skype founders file copyright suit against Skype from CNET News.com