The bitter battle over the future of the Internet calling service Skype appears to be nearing an end.

A resolution of the litigation surrounding the service, currently owned by eBay, could be announced as soon as this week, according to several people who have been briefed on the situation. The parties “sound optimistic that there’s a settlement,” said one of these people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because talks were at a sensitive stage and could still collapse.The proposed settlement is between a consortium of private equity investors who successfully bid for Skype in September, and the original founders of Skype, who have filed several lawsuits in an effort to scuttle the consortium’s $1.9 billion deal to buy a majority of Skype from eBay.

To read this report in The New York Times in full, see:
www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/technology/companies/04skype.html

Also see:

Founders close in on deal over Skype dispute
The founders of Skype are closing in on a deal that could end a complex legal battle and give them back a significant stake in the internet telephony service.

The move, sparked by arguments over the technology that underpins the popular internet service, could bring down the curtain on a drawn-out fracas that had threatened the $2bn attempt by eBay to offload part of its stake in Skype - but could also drastically change the nature of the deal.
www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/nov/04/skype-ebay-deal