Botho Molosankwe
JOHANNESBURG: The quest for justice in the long court battle between Vodacom and the inventor of its Please Call Me service Nkosana Makate wasn’t without its hurdles.
One of the members of Makate’s legal team, advocate Cedric Puckrin SC, said they never doubted the strength of the case. “We believed in the truth of the case and knew that one day justice would be done.”
On Tuesday, the team’s dedication and perseverance paid off when the Constitutional Court ruled against Vodacom, ordering it to compensate Makate for inventing the Please Call Me service, which made the company billions.
The damning judgment against Vodacom stated that the director of product development and management, Philip Geissle, and former chief executive Allan Knott-Craig had “dishonestly credited Knott-Craig with the idea, and this lie was perpetuated in the latter’s autobiography”.
An extract on page 154 of Knott-Craig’s biography, Second is Nothing, which was co-authored by Eunice Afonso, reads: “The Please Call Me idea happened by chance.
“Alan was leaning over the railing of the Vodacom building chatting to a colleague, Phil Geissler, when Phil pointed out one security guard trying to attract another’s attention, and because his buddy didn’t see him, the security guard called him on his cellphone. Alan immediately spoke to Leon about creating a Please Call Me service.”
Puckrin, who questioned Knott-Craig about that part of the book during the court case in 2013, said he did not remember when or how the contents of the book were brought to their attention, but they were “stunned” because Vodacom had sent a newsletter in which it had specifically credited Makate as the inventor.
Puckrin had a strong warning for people with ideas, saying they should guard their intellectual property with properly framed non-disclosure agreements.
In court, Vodacom argued that the idea belonged to them in the beginning, but they did not proceed with it as Makate had come with it outside of his scope of work, said Puckrin. “He was an accountant; he was not employed to devise new products.”
Knott-Craig could not electronically give comment when asked.