"Please Call Me" Inventor: Vodacom not off the hook
Nkosana Makate, the inventor of the "Please Call Me" cellphone SMS service, just won't give up. The former Vodacom employee has filed papers in the Constitutional Court in yet another bid to force the cellular giant to pay for "stealing" his idea.The high court dismissed his case last year, and Makate now wants the highest court to give him the right to appeal.Last month, the Supreme Court of Appeal rejected Makate's application for leave to appeal, finding he had "no reasonable prospects of success".But in papers filed recently, he accused the court of denying him his constitutional right to access the courts (section 34 of the Bill of Rights) and the right to own property (section 25) by refusing to hear the appeal.Makate also introduced a new argument - that the court needs to lay down a principle that the courts should take into account that people are not always in an equal bargaining position.He was a trainee accountant at Vodacom who was negotiating with a senior official, director Philip Geissler, when he hit on the idea of the "Please Call Me" service in 2000, which has since made millions for Vodacom.Makate said Geissler agreed to pay him for the idea if the service was technically and commercially feasible. Vodacom launched it in 2001, but did not pay Makate, who went to court in 2008.High court judge Phillip Coppin accepted Makate's evidence as true, and found that Geissler and former Vodacom CEO Alan Knott-Craig had colluded to keep Makate from receiving financial restitution, but he dismissed the case on the basis that Makate had not proved that Geissler had the authority to make the deal for Vodacom.Coppin also found that he had not filed the claim within three years so it had prescribed, the legal term for expired.Makate said this was incorrect. "My claim is an ongoing one ... only part of my claim for the initial period could have been hit by prescription," he said.He also argued that Geissler "repeatedly and forcibly held himself out and represented that within his aura or within the aegis of being a board member and director ... he did indeed have the authority to enter into an agreement with me".Makate said the court decision had the effect of depriving him of his right to claim money "even while Vodacom continues to benefit to the tune of many billions of rands".Vodacom, at the Constitutional Court, attacked the foundation of Makate's complaint. Nkateko Nyoka, Vodacom's chief legal officer, said the price of the idea - with no technical solution included - would have been at most "a few thousand rand"."On any basis, the claim is ill-founded and grossly inflated."Vodacom said Makate's argument of unequal bargaining power was "an attempt to infuse constitutionality into a nonconstitutional issue"...
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