By David Greenfield
Networking Pipeline
StreamCast Networks, Inc. announced today that it has field suit
against eBay and twenty-one other defendants for $12.3 billion in
damages for allegedly misappropriating intellectual property.
The suit, filed earlier in the year against Skype, was amended to
include eBay in a filing with the federal court in the central
district of California in Los Angeles on Monday.
"The sale of Skype to eBay was made possible through a scheme by many
of the defendants to misappropriate the FastTrack peer-to-peer
technology that rightfully belongs to StreamCast," added outside
Counsel Dan Woods of the global law firm, White & Case. "We've now
added eBay as a defendant to this lawsuit. As we learn about others
who should be defendants, they are being added to the suit."
The complaint states that the defendants orchestrated an "elaborate
over-seas shell game" in an attempt to steal customers and technology
from Steamcast. Kazaa co-founders, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis,
allegedly sold the FastTrack's P2P technology to Kazaa despite
StreamCast having the contractural right to prevent the deal. The
technology was and eventually transferred to Skype through a company
called Sharman Networks. The complaint also alleges that the
defendants also conspired to steal Streamcast's customer base of 28
million users by transferring those customers to Sharman Networks and
to another off-shore company, called Blastoise.
The suite seeks at least $4.1 billion for actual damages, at least
$12.3 billion in treble damage, and additional funds for other damages
and attorneys' fees.
Copyright 2006 CMP Media LLC.
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David Greenfield (networking@telecom-digest.org)