..a comment has been showing up in news articles about idt suing skype over voip patent 704 (NetSpeak patents -- which “relate to a protocol for establishing point-to-point telephony connections over the Internet” which says that it had to do with skype starting to offer free calls in the u.s, to the end of 2006. The background appears to be different – which is another element making the IDT value and offer for net2phone suspect, imo.
in IDT’s SEC filing when it went after Net2Phone, IDT stated it had no current plans in regard to the patents (November 10, 2005; revised November 25, 2005) – [page 20]
"As described under “Special Factors — Section 11. Related Party Transactions; Net2Phone’s Relationship with IDT,” IDT and Net2Phone entered into an intellectual property legal services agreement in 2003, pursuant to which IDT would provide funding and services, including with respect to the exploitation of the Netspeak patent portfolio, in return for a percentage of the licensing fees realized from the portfolio, as well as a monthly servicing fee. This agreement was terminated by the Independent Committee in April 2005, but the parties continued to negotiate over the terms of a servicing and fee sharing arrangement, and IDT maintains that Net2Phone has made a binding commitment to enter into such an arrangement with respect to the Netspeak portfolio. While inferences may be drawn from these circumstances as to the value attributed by IDT to the Netspeak portfolio, IDT management has not made a determination as to the value of the portfolio, has not made any material investment to date in preliminary efforts to monetize the portfolio, has no present plans for the monetization of the portfolio and believes that any attempt at this time to place a value on the portfolio, other than as provided under “—Valuation of Net2Phone” above, is entirely speculative."
sec.gov
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BUT in net2phone's final informational SEC filing on page 39, when recommended taking the same offer it had theretofore had no opinion on, this shows up:
“In late August 2005, Mr. Jonas had discussions with Mr. Greenberg regarding IDT’s interest in enforcing the NetSpeak Patents against a particular competitor of the Company.”
sec.gov
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