EBay outbid Google and Yahoo in buying Skype in 2005 for $2.6 billion, on top of performance incentives that later lifted the final price to $3.1 billion. In 2007, Meg Whitman, then eBay’s chief executive, acknowledged that the company grossly overpaid by writing off $1.4 billion of the purchase price.

One problem for eBay in selling Skype is an escalating intellectual property dispute between eBay and the Skype founders. Joltid, a company founded by Mr. Zennstrom and Mr. Friis, retained ownership of the peer-to-peer technology used in Skype and licensed it back to eBay. Recently, Joltid said that eBay had breached that agreement, and eBay has asked a British court to intercede.

The matter is unlikely to be resolved by the end of the year, which could be dissuading potential buyers of Skype. It is also one reason eBay is planning an offering for Skype nearly a year from now. The company said market conditions would determine the specific timing.

“We will settle that before we do an I.P.O., and we are confident in our legal position on that litigation,” said Alan Marks, an eBay spokesman.

Analysts who follow eBay had expected it to sell Skype outright and were surprised by the announcement. They applauded eBay’s efforts to spin it off, though they noted that the public markets had not been very receptive to initial offerings. There have been no I.P.O.’s of venture-backed companies in the last two quarters, the first time such a drought has occurred, according to the National Venture Capital Association.