Court orders Vodacom to pay Please Call Me inventor
South Africa’s highest legal authority, the Constitutional Court, has ruled that Vodacom must compensate the inventor of the Please Call Me SMS product.
The court on Tuesday morning found Vodacom was bound by an agreement with Kenneth Nkosana Makate who has said he invented the Please Call Me concept.
Makate conceived the Please Call Me concept in November 2000 and he approached Vodacom's director and head of product development at the time, Philip Geissler, about the idea, according to a summary from the Constitutional Court judgment.
Geissler and Makate then reached an oral agreement that Vodacom would experiment with the idea.
"If it proved commercially viable, Mr Makate would be paid a share of proceeds from the product subject to terms to be negotiated between him and Mr Geissler. Vodacom implemented the idea in March 2001," reads the summary of the Constitutional Court judgment.
"Given Mr Geissler’s position at Vodacom; the organisational structure within which he exercised his power; and his role in the process which had to be followed before a new product could be introduced at Vodacom, the judgment held that Mr Geissler had ostensible authority to bind Vodacom," says a summary of the judgment.
The judgment marks the high-point of a years-long legal battle between Makate and Vodacom over Please Call Me.
Meanwhile, Vodacom spokesperson Byron Kennedy said: "We are aware of the Constitutional Court ruling and are currently studying its contents."
Comments
Press Office
Announcements
What's On
Subscribe to improve your user experience...
Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):
Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):
All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors
including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.
Already a subscriber?
Forgotten your password?
Receive weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine (print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
➕
Recieve daily email newsletters
➕
Access to full search results
➕
Access archive of magazine back copies
➕
Access to Projects in Progress
➕
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA
R4500 (equivalent of R375 a month)
SUBSCRIBEAll benefits from Option 1
➕
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports on various industrial and mining sectors, in PDF format, including on:
Electricity
➕
Water
➕
Energy Transition
➕
Hydrogen
➕
Roads, Rail and Ports
➕
Coal
➕
Gold
➕
Platinum
➕
Battery Metals
➕
etc.
Receive all benefits from Option 1 or Option 2 delivered to numerous people at your company
➕
Multiple User names and Passwords for simultaneous log-ins
➕
Intranet integration access to all in your organisation