Vodacom Please Call Me - The truth

RedViking said:
Sorry for my English, but I'm gonna try my best to explain the way I see it.

Where in the history of SA corporates does an employee receive a % or earn an investment for an ideas created within a company. Vodacom's mistake was that they did not compensate him for the idea, which is probably why they were ordered now to do so, as it should have been handled. Even if he was compensated back when he shared the idea, it would never have been millions. His idea at that stage wasn't worth muchef until Vodacom developed it. The fact that Vodacom has offered him millions is very generous. Now if Makate resigned, started his own businesses and sold his complete product to Vodacom, he could have argued a % of the proffit. This is not about who is on what side or who likes or hates who.As much as we hate these big corporates having redicolous OOB charges, we still need to think logical about the situation. Without Vodacom, Makates idea was nothing but a fart in the wind. He didn't have the capital, nor the experience to do something useful with the idea. Vodacom made it happen, Vodacom spent all the money, vodacom supplied all the capital, vodacom sorted out issues, Vodacom developed it into a working product. In order to justify the billions Makate think he is entitled to, you must show an example where this has been practiced before.
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No need to apologise for your English RedViking, it's better than most of the trolls here. At least you have made an effort to put a constructive contribution forward to this debate.

As I said previously, hindsight is an exact science and we all know know now how successful Makate's PCM idea was. Vodacom's Managing Director even praised him for it in their corporate newsletter at the time. You can find all the e-mail correspondence between them back then, on another older article on this website.

http://www.arrowline.co.za/archives/2625

The Con Court ruled that Makate had an agreement with Vodacom that he would be rewarded for his PCM idea, if and when they launched it into the market. There wasn't a major re-engineering of their systems to add the PCM option to a person's cellphone, which has been borne out by the speed that they were able to launch it. (Hennie Van Zyl/Ali Kahn, you may be able to enlighten us 'un-techies' on how long it actually took to take it from Makate's PCM idea to the launch date?) It proved to be more successful beyond Vodacom's (or Makate's) wildest dreams and they were able to announce an uptake of 130,000 subscribers using it on the first day!

Makate, being a trainee accountant, knew that he was onto something. He was the boy who brought the 'goose' to Vodacom and he wanted to share it with them for their mutual benefit. When they realised that it was laying golden eggs, they got greedy and decided "This is our goose and Makate can shoo off!"

That golden goose went onto many offspring and they laid many golden eggs for Vodafone around the world, and poor old Makate went hungry.

This lengthy (but riveting) fairytale is not over yet. I hope it ends with ".....and they all lived happily every after." (With thanks to The Brothers Grimm)
 
RedViking said:
Okay but if you study the court case, Vodacom acknowledges him as giving them the idea to do the please call me.

Whether it was done before is beside the point.

So between him and Vodacom he should be compensated. Which is what they did.

If I remember correctly there is already an agreement between Vodscom and MTN regarding the call me service.

So who ever thinks they created and patented it will have to go after MTN. Within in Vodacom Makate was acknowledged to bring forth the idea. But for him to think he is entitled to billions is absurd.
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They acknowledged him, they acknowledged AKN and they acknowledged mtn as the original inventor. They've been lying as well as pointed out by the high court & constitutional court.

It's not besides the point as no person can claim prior art as theirs under law.

What was that agreement? Source?

No, why should anybody go after the originator of the concept and lawful patent holder, you make zero sense.
 
Swa said:
... and for all we know the figure could have been R100k which wouldn't even cover legal costs.
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Except the was a separate cost order. So that is taken care of and not included in his "reward".
 
RedViking said:
I agree what they did is not fair and was unethical. There is no argument about that. But where do you draw the line in what Makate or Makate's new friends think he should get?
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That is the issue. He should be paid enough. If those at the sidelines have to also get paid then so be it as their involvement could have been avoided. We have a long standing principle that those in the wrong pay for the legal costs first before compensation is paid. Ideally I would like to see the court award an amount so it's final and public. But that could go either way depending on what Vodacom really offered.

ponder said:
They acknowledged him, they acknowledged AKN and they acknowledged mtn as the original inventor. They've been lying as well as pointed out by the high court & constitutional court.

It's not besides the point as no person can claim prior art as theirs under law.

What was that agreement? Source?

No, why should anybody go after the originator of the concept and lawful patent holder, you make zero sense.
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Prior art wasn't the issue as has been said many times and the court documents show. But neither Vodacom nor MTN can claim prior art for a simple idea that's been in use for decades. That's not how patents work. It's like the modern printing press. Gutenberg was the first to put together a working universal prototype but the original idea was in use for decades before.
 
Sollie said:
Except the was a separate cost order. So that is taken care of and not included in his "reward".
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No that's only direct costs. There's also the financiers which made the case possible but who would take a percentage.
 
Swa said:
No that's only direct costs. There's also the financiers which made the case possible but who would take a percentage.
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Yes, I think that is the real issue here and where all this is coming from now.
 
ponder said:
They acknowledged him, they acknowledged AKN and they acknowledged mtn as the original inventor. They've been lying as well as pointed out by the high court & constitutional court.

It's not besides the point as no person can claim prior art as theirs under law.

What was that agreement? Source?

No, why should anybody go after the originator of the concept and lawful patent holder, you make zero sense.
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Ponder, please read this MyBroadband article as they are e-mails and correspondence between Vodacom and Makate at the time, dating from 2000-2001. That should clear a few arguments up about what really happened at the time between them.

http://www.arrowline.co.za/archives/2625
 
Ubuntu_Babe said:
Ponder, please read this MyBroadband article as they are e-mails and correspondence between Vodacom and Makate at the time, dating from 2000-2001. That should clear a few arguments up about what really happened at the time between them.

http://www.arrowline.co.za/archives/2625
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It's irrelevant to my reply. What you linked to I already mentioned earlier in the thread.
 
Swa said:
It's expenses relating to getting them to pay. How is it not their problem?
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Cost order of court said otherwise tho .
Eg he hired 5 attorneys but court said vodacom must pay for 2 only. If they need more he must appeal.
 
Jola said:
I don't believe that Vodacom owes him anything, even if the prior registration of the patent by MTN was invalid.

He worked for Vodacom, and any IP that he created while he worked there belongs to Vodacom.

Not sure what the CC was up to, but a months salary bonus would surely be "reasonable compensation" !
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Exactly, though I starting to think that line was omitted from empoyee contracts at the time of his hiring. Otherwise there shouldn't be a legal battle at all
 
mmmig said:
Exactly, though I starting to think that line was omitted from empoyee contracts at the time of his hiring. Otherwise there shouldn't be a legal battle at all
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It's obvious from the e-mail evidence and correspondence below that he had an agreement with Vodacom on his PCM idea, which he expected to be rewarded on when it was launched. We seem to be going around in circles here.

http://www.arrowline.co.za/archives/2625
 
thehuman said:
Cost order of court said otherwise tho .
Eg he hired 5 attorneys but court said vodacom must pay for 2 only. If they need more he must appeal.
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No it said 2 council actually. But that's beside the point he had investors as well which one can reasonably expect to get paid.

mmmig said:
Exactly, though I starting to think that line was omitted from empoyee contracts at the time of his hiring. Otherwise there shouldn't be a legal battle at all
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Not something that's needed for standard employee contracts and it would be dodgy if they included it. Besides how far should that stretch? Should certainly not cover anything not part of someone's job description.
 
Swa said:
No it said 2 council actually. But that's beside the point he had investors as well which one can reasonably expect to get paid.


Not something that's needed for standard employee contracts and it would be dodgy if they included it. Besides how far should that stretch? Should certainly not cover anything not part of someone's job description.
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I'm pretty sure that I had a clause like that in every employee contract for every job that I have ever had, it is quite standard.
 
Jola said:
I'm pretty sure that I had a clause like that in every employee contract for every job that I have ever had, it is quite standard.
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What type of work? If you're in some kind of research and development then yes. If you're a security guard it's unlikely and neither should there be such a clause.
 
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