It’s perfectly logical that Ebay did not seek to acquire the rights to the underlying IP in order to avoid legal liabilities for KaZaA, Sharman, etc. I suspect it was a fairly straightforward discussion and tactic for Skype to sell the company to Ebay with a “perpetual” license back for the underlying technology. Only when Joltid (owned by JF/NZ) decided to terminate that license (citing breach/violation of terms by Skype [ie back-stab]) did it become an obvious [glaringly so] issue.

Also interesting, here’s an article from September 2005 which first points to potential concerns/issue about the IP (but no one paid much attention to it at the time): http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/239324/court_wrangling_haunts_skypes_ragstoriches_story/index.html

Maybe she’ll propose buying skype (again) to reduce driving in CA an save the environment.

Is this simply a bet by SilverLake and partners that their lawyers are better and pockets are deeper than the founders?

If they can solve the legal issue, I absolutely love the opportunity! I can come up with 10 ideas in 10 minutes on how to monetize Skype users at a rate that is more than $5 per head. They could blow out the CEBP/Telco 2.0 space.

http://skypejournal.com/2009/07/skype-races-to-replace-joltid-p2p-by.html – This article defines the disputed technology, loosely, as “P2P technology”, and goes on to discuss what P2P technology does for Skype (in short, give Skype the world’s low-cost telecoms architecture). SIP-like functions may be part of this, but the patents are probably a lot broader than session control.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601204&sid=ark5.p.p7yxA – In this article, a Skype rep says losing access to the Joltid technology would shut down Skype. NFW Silverlake invests in Skype without knowing this problem can be solved.

Pointing to previous articles would be helpful. It feels like the elephant in the room that no one really wants to talk about.
Thanks for the great work.