Skype Founders Sue eBay

The founders of Skype filed a copyright lawsuit against EBay Inc. and the companies planning to buy the Internet-calling business. Photo by sdbg.info

A company owned by the founders of Skype filed a copyright suit against eBay Inc. and a group of investors that plan to buy Skype from eBay, a move that could complicate the recent USD 2 B deal, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The suit, filed Wednesday in the Northern California U.S. District Court, extends the drama behind eBay's tumultuous relationship with Skype.

Skype's founders, Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, left Skype in 2007, two years after eBay bought the online communications provider. Their company, Joltid Ltd., has been embroiled in an intellectual property dispute with Skype since March, putting a cloud over eBay's efforts to unload Skype.

At the heart of the dispute is a peer-to-peer technology called "global index" that is owned by Joltid. That technology is also used at the core of Skype's software, which routes calls over the Internet instead of traditional phone lines.