Skype's future shaky, warns eBay

eBay is facing a court battle with Joltid, the company owned by Skype's founders which holds the rights to Sykpe's underlying technology.
When eBay bought Skype for US$2.3 billion in 2005, Joltid licensed the technology to eBay, but has now revoked that licence.

In a regulatory filing, eBay said that if it fails to win the court case in June next year and is unable to create a new VOIP technology that does not infringe on existing patents, “continued operation of Skype's business as currently conducted would likely not be possible”.

In October last year Skype faced international criticism after a report claimed its Chinese business was monitoring conversations for sensitive content. Chinese Tom Online, Skype’s partner in China, has been found to be monitoring text exchanges between Skype users in the country.

Skype is one of eBay's most successful companies, and eBay has plans to launch it as an independent company and list it on the stock exchange.

Skype has 480 million users worldwide.