eBay is inching closer to selling it’s popular internet telephony service Skype after reaching an agreement with Joltid and Joost M.V. over patent infringement litigation.

The settlement did not come cheap. Skype founders Niklas Zennstorm and Janus Friis have given up a lot of equity, bringing their total stake in the company to 14-percent, in order for Joltid to drop litigation and to pass all rights to the questioned underlying VoIP technologies to Skype.

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eBay announced today the company has bought a controlling 67% stake in South Korea’s largest internet-based marketplace, Gmarket, in a deal worth US $1.2 billion. The deal was approved unanimously across the Gmarket board.

It is highly unlikely eBay will merge Gmarket with its current brands in the region.

eBay CEO John Donahoe said, “The combination of Gmarket and Internet Auction Company establishes an exceptionally strong leadership position for eBay in one of the world’s largest, most dynamic and innovative e-commerce markets,”

It is a good strategic strategy for eBay to try to further establish itself in the emerging and high growth Asian region markets.

The deal will be completed in only a couple of months in June 2009.