Skype and Joltid settle

Litigation ends

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6 November 2009 16:11 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

eBay's Skype has reached a settlement with Joltid over a breach of license that will now see the sale of the VoIP firm go through without litigation hassles.

Joltid Ltd, a Swedish firm owned by Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, had claimed peer-to-peer technology owned by Joltid, and not eBay, was being used in a breach of license with every download of the Skype software.

It's now been announced that the investor group led by Silver Lake, which is to acquire a majority stake in Skype, has reached a settlement agreement with Joltid and Joost that gives Skype ownership over all software previously licensed from Joltid.

As part of the settlement, Zennstrom and Friis will join the investor group and the Skype board with a 14% share in exchange for providing Joltid software and a significant capital investment.

This now ends all litigation currently pending against the investor group and eBay.

"We'll be free to concentrate all of our efforts on building the world’s greatest communications software", says Skype in a blog post.

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