Safaricom Twitter Admin had a rough Friday morning after a tweet accusing the Telco of theft went viral.
A Twitter user, The G (@Onorpik) shared an idea with Safaricom in June. The Telco told him that his idea can’t make it since they accept ideas from only those guys that already have solutions in the market.
Hey @Safaricom_Care , i have an idea. Sharing of bundles can be made easier through linking of several numbers to one host number. E.g. I can by bundles on my number and then through a subscription i can link my wife, daughter, and so on, to use same data even if they are far off, “Onorpik wrote
To which Safaricom replied, “Hi Kiprono Safaricom only accepts proposals that we have solicited. In terms of supporting innovation, we partner with different innovators who already have existing solutions in the market.^TM.”
A year later, the Telco advertised the idea without contacting him. The Innovation might not have been registered as we understand. And that’s the bad part.
Research by IP Qarch showed that Intellectual property theft is rampant in Kenya. Mostly, corporates take advantage of the poor conditions of the innovators and their ignorance to register patents, Utility models and copyrights.
But that’s not entirely the case, in the latest court battle with Safaricom, A local start-up Kibo Capital Group Limited unique utility model was copied by the telco to form the MPESA Bill manager for businesses.
According to documents seen by Kenyan Business Feed, Safaricom once presented a weak case in court. They seek to deregister the utility model.
It remains to be seen how Kenya Industrial Property Institute will rule.
In the latest, theft, KOT, weighed the matter. Most accused Safaricom of theft and asked the Telco to pay.
Here are some tweets we sampled.
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