Ebay’s bid to sell Skype hit a potential hurdle on Wednesday as the founders of the Web communications company filed a lawsuit for copyright infringement.
Joltid Ltd, a company started by Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, named eBay, Skype and the group of investors who are seeking to purchase Skype from eBay as defendants in the lawsuit.
EBay purchased Skype from Zennstrom and Friis in 2005 for a price tag that eventually exceeded US$3.1 billion.
Joltid, which has also filed suit against Skype in a British court, said it holds “the intellectual property rights to several key applications which it has licensed to a number of companies, among them Skype.”
“Joltid terminated its license agreement with Skype as a result of breaches by Skype,” a Joltid spokesman said. “Skype has infringed Joltid’s copyrights.”
“Joltid will vigorously enforce its copyrights and other intellectual property rights in all of the technologies it has innovated,” he said.
In its complaint, Joltid said it “seeks actual and statutory damages for infringement [which Joltid reasonably believes are amassing at a rate of more than US$75 million daily] and an injunction to stop the infringement.”
The suit was filed with a California court two weeks after eBay announced it was selling a 65 percent stake in Skype to private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, London-based Index Ventures, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz for some US$2 billion.
Also named as a defendant was Index Ventures partner Mike Volpi, who was removed last week as chairman of Joost, an online video company also founded by Web entrepreneurs Zennstrom and Friis.
EBay, in a statement, dismissed the lawsuit as “without merit” and said it expected the sale of Skype to go ahead as scheduled.
“Their allegations and claims are without merit and are founded on fundamental legal and factual errors,” the online auction house said. “We remain on track to close the transaction in the fourth quarter of 2009.”
Skype, which has its headquarters in Luxembourg, bypasses the standard telephone network by channeling voice and video calls over the Internet.
Its allows users to call others free of charge and provides the ability to connect with land lines or mobile devices at low rates.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique