UK firm says Joburg man's bin there, stolen the idea

A UK company and a South African entrepreneur are fighting over bins. Adesh Naidoo, of Johannesburg, has been accused of stealing the idea for bins mounted on street lampposts from UK company Smartstreets.

Naidoo's bins, which are mounted on lampposts in Tshwane and are being introduced in Johannesburg, have been praised by the Small Enterprise Development Agency, the Green City Start-Up Project and the Durban Chamber of Commerce for the design. Naidoo received almost R1-million in support funding.

But now Andrew Farish, managing director of Smartstreets, says he was horrified to find that Naidoo had launched a business derived from the design of his product.

The main similarities between the bins are that they are mounted on lampposts and intended for cigarette butts and gum litter, but Naidoo's product allows for double-sided advertising.

"Mr Naidoo contacted us with a view to representing our products in South Africa," said Farish.

"We said we were open to this ... with a warning that they may not be used in any way outside of an agreement to work with us.

"He ignored our warnings about using our intellectual property without permission and decided to re-create our product and launch it in South Africa as his own invention."

Farish claimed that when Naidoo was in London in 2010 he came across the products, which were patented in the UK in 2006.

A letter to Smartstreets from Naidoo's lawyer said: "The concept of affixing a bin to a lamppost was indeed derived by our client from his experience whilst living in London. Nothing under South African law prohibits the use or exploitation of a similar or even identical idea or concept, per se."