When a group of investors pooled their resources a few weeks ago to put a bid in to buy Skype from eBay, I thought there was a good chance that Skype’s legal woes were behind them. Apparently, I was wrong, and a new lawsuit makes it clear just how bad the situation is for Skype.
Sure, Skype doesn’t own its core P2P technology, and founders Janus Friis
and Niklas Zennstrom were trying to rip that IP out of the service. But that’s all old news from months ago. Surely those new investors wouldn’t have committed to paying $1.9 billion for 65% of a company that didn’t control its IP?
At the time of the deal, people close to the transaction told me that the new investors had a much better relationship with Niklas and Janus than eBay, and the situation would soon be worked out. Our best guess was the two would be given a piece of Skype, and possibly a board seat, and the litigation would be dropped.
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