The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. Silver Lake, venture-capital firms Index Ventures and Andreesen Horowitz and

These investors include private-equity firm District Court against eBay that also names the investors as defendants. In the dispute by filing a lawsuit in Northern California U.S. A few weeks ago, Friis and Zennstrom opened another front Joltid disagreed, terminated the license agreement and filed defenses and counterclaims against Skype alleging that Skype had repudiated the license agreement, infringed upon Joltid's copyright, and misused confidential information. Lawfully accessing, in possession of, using and modifying the GI code inĪccordance with the terms of the agreement. court asking for declaratory relief and a finding that it is In March of this year, Skype filed aĬlaim in a U.K. Owned by eBay) obtained unauthorized versions of the GI source code andīreached the terms of its licensing agreement by continuing to modify andĬreate derivatives of the source code. However after their departure in 2007, Friis and Zennstrom beganĬhallenging eBay's use of the GI technology, claiming that Skype (at that point

Long as Friis and Zennstrom remained with Skype because they were authorized to Skype the right to use an executable-only form of the GI code, known as theĭid not obtain any rights or license to the source code of the GI According to Friis and Zennstrom, the license agreement granted That decision appears to be coming back to License agreement for the GI code between Skype and Joltid. eBay therefore purchased Skype subject to a To sell or directly license the GI source code to eBay. It initially purchased Skype, eBay attempted to purchase Joltid as well butįriis and Zennstrom refused to sell, wanting instead to retain the intellectual Rather it is owned by Joltid Ltd., a company Surprisingly, the GI technology, which was developed by Skype's founders, Janusįriis and Niklas Zennstrom, is not owned by eBay or Skype. Peer-to-peer technology called 'global index' ('GI') that In the latest developmentĬompanies owned by the founders of Skype filed additional lawsuits last week against eBay and its future investors.

News reports in recent weeks have revealed howĭisputes over the ownership of certain critical IP may derail eBay's $1.9 billion deal to sell a stake in the well-known internet communications company Skype.

Who owns skype technologies inc