eBay, the parent company of Skype, has sued IDT over a claimed patent infringement on the PennyTalk calling card. It is believed that IDT’s PennyTalk calling cards infringe a patent for Internet-based telephone calls.
While no details of the lawsuit were released other than PennyTalk is using a 2000 patent of theirs for a “long distance telephone communications system.”
IDT’s PennyTalk cards, which can be reused as customers add more money to their accounts, charge 1 cent a minute for U.S. calls and 2 cents for international calls.
Net2Phone, which IDT bought in 2006, sued eBay and Skype the same year in federal court in Newark, N.J., over patented technology for Internet telephones. A pre-trial conference in the case is scheduled for June.
source: Mercury News