IDT subsidiary Net2Phone is taking Skype to court, along with
parent company eBay, over patent number 6,108,704, a Voice over
Internet Protocol (VoIP) patent granted in the US which it says
Skype has infringed.
The patent, granted in 2000, related to a system which connected
two users after initial email contact. They are then connected in a
telephone call which is routed over the internet.
The suit, filed in the District Court of New Jersey, takes on
one of the industry's giants. Skype was founded in just 2003, yet
was sold to eBay last year for $26 billion. It has over 100 million
users all over the world. Dell recently announced that Skype
software would come automatically loaded to many of its laptop
computers.
Skype allows computer users anywhere in the world to call each
other for free but charges for computer-to-phone calls. It is
currently in the middle of a major US promotional drive, making all
computer-to-phone calls free for the rest of the year.
Net2Phone alleges that it is the system by which the
point-to-point connection is established that infringes its patent.
In contrast, systems run by more traditional telecoms companies
centrally manage a phone network to connect users.
