The legal high jinks in the contentious battle over the fate of Skype got worse this afternoon, as former Joost CEO Michelangelo Volpi and Index Ventures filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the founders of Skype–Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, via Joost and Joltid–against them.

It’s yet another chess move among a group of well-known tech players, who used to work together closely and are now at odds.

In a filing in the U.S. District Court in Delaware, Volpi and the London-based Index–where Volpi now works–noted, referring to a bid Zennström and Friis made to regain control of Skype, which they sold to eBay (EBAY) years ago:

“Instead of accepting the fact that their bid failed in the marketplace, Friis and Zennström are now using inflammatory and highly-charged litigation–through companies that have no relationship to the Skype purchase–to try to achieve their personal business goals.”

A spokesman for Joost and Joltid did not agree with Volpi’s assessment:

“Mr. Volpi’s latest motion appears to have been prepared prior to Defendants receiving Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction, which is filled with evidence supporting Plaintiffs’ claims. In light of this strong showing of substantive evidence, much of it from Mr. Volpi’s own correspondence, there is no basis for Mr. Volpi’s assertion that Plaintiffs have somehow failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.”

Index was a small player within a group that won Skype, putting in $75 million, in a $2 billion deal that is set to close in the next few weeks.

The motion to dismiss the filing is not surprising given that Joost and Joltid filed a motion for preliminary injunction against Volpi and Index yesterday.

They are asking that he not use knowledge or confidential information he got at the video start-up in current dealings with Skype.

To complicate things further, the innovative and entrepreneurial pair also own a company called Joltid, which has licensed key technology for Skype to eBay.

Joltid and eBay have already been fighting in court over that agreement, bickering back and forth about whether eBay violated the terms of that deal or not.

Via Joltid, Zennström and Friis also filed suit again against Skype and its owner, eBay, for copyright violations in the U.S.

For good measure, they added the winning buyout group, including Index, Silver Lake Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

And both Joltid and Joost have also sued Volpi personally, as well as Index, making serious allegations about his behavior as Joost CEO.

Here are several key legal filings to peruse, for all you “Law & Order” types:

Motion to Dismiss _00302105_ –

Opposition to Motion For Expedition _00302104_ –

Volpi Opening Brief 10.15.09 _00302101_ –

Well, for sure, Microsoft execs were not doing high-fives after Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang said he was stepping down yesterday, as Yahoo searches for a new CEO to take over.

Well, maybe some small and discreet ones.

That hand-slapping, of course, was the delightful tidbit from the New York Times after Microsoft (MSFT) dropped its takeover bid for Yahoo (YHOO) earlier this year.

The story: Yahoo execs were reportedly high-fiving each other in celebration for not taking $31 a share from the software giant. Today, of course, Yahoo stock has been halved.

Which has long begged the question why Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has persistently–almost obsessively, really–not gone back and made another bid for Yahoo at discount prices.

Well, simply put, he does not want Yahoo whole and still doesn’t want it, even with Yang’s departure.

While many like to gin up a “Dynasty”-style feud between Yang and Ballmer–as if they were Alexis and Krystle cat-fighting in a fountain–that was never true, and Yang’s moving on will not change the equation that much.

Of course, Microsoft execs were burning up the phone wires down to Silicon Valley yesterday trying to make sure it is well positioned to make the deal it does want: A sweeping search and search-advertising partnership with Yahoo, whose similar deal with Google (GOOG) recently collapsed.

“They are ready to move, as soon as it becomes clear who is in charge at Yahoo,” said one source close to the situation. “They don’t want to appear too eager, but also don’t want to lose this one.”

Indeed, Microsoft is now in a good position to wait and swoop, one of its more effective tactics. Not that its consumer-facing digital strategies have been very successful thus far, and it definitely bollixed the Yahoo takeover attempt.

But the software giant has shown it can be more than willing to fork over way too much payola to try to catch up with its archrival Google in the search game at companies like Facebook and, more recently, Verizon (VZ).

While a deal with Yahoo will not bring Microsoft in even close range of Google, it is a deal that is most likely to be done, given the pressure on Yahoo now.

While a large group of execs at Yahoo still maintain that separating search and the company’s other businesses is dangerous to its future, it is hard to imagine its board will pick a new CEO who is not more than willing to travel to Microsoft’s Redmond, Wash., HQ and make peace pronto, and do a deal.

High-fives, all around, everyone?

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

As BoomTown reported on Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo (YHOO) have been chatting away informally, after a week of faux-wrestling.

It’s been like WrestleMania, except without the excitement and anticipation. Also, no cool names or outfits.

As I posted on Tuesday:

While it is true, as we and everyone else have posted, that Yahoo and Microsoft still have not entered into or even scheduled any formal talks, even after the software giant’s threat to launch a hostile bid came and went over the weekend without action, it is also not true that there are no talks going on.

According to sources close to both companies, there are informal discussions now taking place between Yahoo and Microsoft–via bankers, board members, shareholders and others close to both companies–to try to prevent a hostile takeover scenario or the sudden withdrawal of Microsoft’s offer.

Both options are unattractive for a number of reasons to pretty much everyone and, in BoomTown’s opinion, an excellent example of how juvenile this takeover battle has become (or “amateur hour,” as one source close to both companies described it to me).

A hostile bid by Microsoft, for example, is profoundly distracting to both parties and could result in an exodus of Yahoo staff, along with being risky in terms of certain success for Microsoft.”

And from the Journal this afternoon:

The two sides and their advisers have had informal discussions over the past week, but have been stymied by a divide on the price Microsoft should pay to acquire Yahoo, say the people. Microsoft has been weighing whether to drop its bid or go hostile, and has promised to announce its decision this week. As of Thursday night, Microsoft was leaning toward going hostile, but the situation remained fluid, according to people familiar with the matter.

Now, people close to the two sides are attempting to avert that prospect with discussions they hope could lead to a negotiated outcome, say the people. Microsoft has wanted to avoid a hostile takeover battle, which could drag out and result in distraction and the loss of key Yahoo employees.”

In the late 1990s, during the height of the bubble of Web 1.0, there was a poolside charity auction at an Industry Standard conference for a variety of items donated by Web luminaries.

A tie from John Doerr, the right to push eBay CEO Meg Whitman in the pool and also the little black dress that then-CEO Katrina Garnett of CrossWorlds Software had worn and made famous in a Richard Avedon-shot ad for the company.

I am blanking on the person who bought the dress, but what was most interesting about that item was that the same person kept upping his own price, and went several rounds bidding against himself before winning the prize for a lot of money.

It was amusing at the time, a symbol of a very frothy time indeed.

Today is not that time, so I was a bit perplexed at why Microsoft (MSFT) would top its own bid and raise its $31-per-share offer for Yahoo (YHOO) to $34 a share, as suggested by Citigroup (C) analyst Mark Mahaney yesterday.

There seem to be no other rivals and not much has changed since the software giant made its unsolicited offer at the start of February, except for time passing.

Of course, the only reason to do so then is to get the deal done sooner than later and perhaps the number was a public message to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer of that fact (as I said before, I am sure there are plenty of private messages too).

And while I am in the camp that Yahoo, well run, is probably worth a whole lot more (see this post I did at the start of this slog) than even $34–although perhaps not the $40 that Yahoo claimed last week–it’s still a matter of actually getting Microsoft to pay it by bidding against itself.

As I saw back in the roaring ’90s, it could happen. The question is: What will it take to get Microsoft to do it?

My guess if it happens: Sheer boredom and the cost of wasted time during which rival Google (GOOG) keeps chugging along and a distracted Microsoft and Yahoo do not.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Over the last year, as he has sought to revive the flagging fortunes of Yahoo, CEO and Co-Founder Jerry Yang has ferreted himself away from the spotlight and has seldom made himself available to talk to investors or reporters about what he has been up to.

I dubbed it the “cave” strategy, mostly because that’s what many around Yahoo called it. Since Yang really didn’t have anything good to say about the troubled Internet giant, he didn’t say anything at all.

I always thought that a big mistake, since it was very insular and defensive. Like my politicians, I like my Internet execs able and willing to take on all critics (and for all the grief I have been giving Facebook, in stark contrast to Yahoo, its execs are very willing to go a round with anyone who questions their moves).

So you might have thought that the surprising unsolicited bid to grab Yahoo by Microsoft might have brought out the fighting spirit in Yang.

That’s especially true, since it has been widely reported (and entirely true) that he had rebuffed such advances many times and was actually not shocked (despite what has been reported, Yang had to know it was coming given the weak, stock-depressing quarter he turned in on Tuesday) by the $31 per share offer he received on Thursday.

But, no.

“So they are now deeper in their cave than ever,” reports one frustrated person close to the top execs at Yahoo yesterday, echoing a widespread sentiment at Yahoo’s Sunnyvale, Calif., HQ.

Deeper? Is that even possible? If so, Yang must now be living in the Mariana Trench of the Web world.

But, even if he gets the bends, Yang needs to surface and quickly.

Why? Well, I am no crisis PR expert (Yahoo has hired those–the Abernathy MacGregor Group in New York, in fact).

But, if Yang does want Yahoo to remain independent (which, incredibly at this point, I am told he does) or he wants another alternative (I know there’s backroom blabbing going on, but still) or he just wants to get a better price from Microsoft (he should), he had better get out there and make his case.

He doesn’t have to say what he thinks about the Microsoft incursion specifically, because he needs to wait for the board to respond to that.

But as a potent symbol, Yang could talk up the virtues of Yahoo and its own vision for itself more clearly–something he has had a lot of trouble doing over the last year that has been a factor in landing the company in its current situation.

Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer certainly has been swanning around in front of reporters and investors since he made the Microsoft bid public, carefully laying out his justification for his hostile offer.

That included an interview today with The Wall Street Journal’s Rob Guth, as well as a strategic update he gave to investors for the company, in which he again called the Yahoo bid a “very attractive offer.”

It is simply not, as I have written. Despite Yahoo’s woes, it is easy to make the case that its impressive range of assets and its massive traffic make it a bargain for Microsoft’s effort to make a dent in its fight against Google in the online ad game.

Ballmer said as much today when he noted correctly that “Yahoo can get us farther, sooner.”

And if a workhorse to pull Ballmer to greater glory is what Yang wants to become, then saying nothing is the best way to make that happen.

I am told that Yang is hamstrung from speaking out by lawyers and the once-not-and-now-involved board.

Well, I doubt that is what is keeping the always-cautious Yang from speaking out. It’s just not in his nature to do so, although this might be the time to change that.

Internally, Yang was trying to communicate to his troops and did note in an oddly punctuated all-lower-case internal letter (which I have corrected) to employees on Friday that nothing has been decided yet.

Wrote Yang, along with new frying-pan-into-the-fire Yahoo Non-Executive Chairman Roy Bostock:

“We want to emphasize that absolutely no decisions have been made–and, despite what some people have tried to suggest, there’s certainly no integration process underway. This proposal is just that–a proposal. And it was only made in the last 24 hours. You can be sure the board is going to review it thoughtfully and carefully, and do what’s right for our great company. Microsoft’s proposal is one of many options that we’re evaluating in order to maximize value for our shareholders and employees over the long term. That’s why we will respond to Microsoft after our board has completed a careful review of all of our strategic alternatives.”

Yang went on to urge employees not to let “this situation distract us from our core mission.”

As if.