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by CIO Staff

Net2Phone, Skype Head to Court over Patent

News
Jun 02, 20062 mins
VoIP

Net2Phone, a provider of voice-over-IP (VoIP) services, is suing online auction house eBay and its subsidiary Skype, another VoIP provider, for allegedly infringing on a Net2Phone patent on point-to-point Web calling, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Net2Phone filed the suit in U.S. District Court in Newark, N.J., on Thursday, and it’s seeking an injunction to stop Skype from using its patented technology, as well as damages, according to the Journal.

eBay purchased Skype in 2005 for $2.6 billion in cash and stocks, and in late April, the company announced that it reached the 100 million subscriber mark. 

Skype users can employ their PCs to call other Skype subscribers’ computers free of charge, and until the end of this year, customers in the United States and Canada can also call traditional landlines or mobiles for free as part of a recent promotion.

Just yesterday, Skype announced a partnership with Vapps, a company that provides VoIP-related technologies for conference calling, to offer its subscribers free conference calls for up to 500 individuals at one time.

For related news coverage, read eBay, Skype, Others Sued by File-Sharing Software Co.

Check out our CIO News Alerts and Tech Informer pages for more updated news coverage.