Skype Sues PennyTalk Calling Card for Patent infringement

In one of the most ridiculous things I have seen recently, eBay, the parent company of Skype, has sued IDT over a claimed patent infringement on the PennyTalk calling card. 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."

Now if I am correct PennyTalk is just a prepaid calling card, which is the most basic form of telecommunications service... does Skype have a patent on calling cards?

This just smells of abuse of our legal system and is no doubt a tit fo tat retaliatory lawsuit to get revenge on IDT for suing Skype for a VOIP patent infringement issue. While I don't know much about the IDT lawsuit against Skype, I do know that if anyone can claim ownership of VOIP patents, it is IDTs Net2Phone group who was one of the founding fathers of the VOIP business but I can guarantee you that Skype claiming it has patents in the calling card market is just plain ridiculous!

To read the brief announcement click here