Please Call Me Inventor To Smile All the Way to the Bank After Court Rules In His Favour
Please Call Me inventor Kenneth Nkosana Makate will be smiling all the way to the bank as court officially ruled in his favour, meaning that the perennial battle between him and Vodacom has come to a decisive end.
On 6 February 2024, the Supreme Court of Appeal brushed off Vodacom’s appeal, siding with Makate in the legal struggle arising from Kenneth’s “Please Call Me” idea, The ruling has been issued such that Vodacom has been set to pay 5% to 7,5% of all voice revenue that the “buzzing” idea accumulated over 18 years since it was implemented, with interest taken into consideration.
Makate’s idea allowed users of the service to be able to reach out to those they wanted to get a hold of without the stress of spending airtime. This meant that users were allowed to use the messaging service completely free to get the attention of those being “buzzed”. The estimated time considered in calculating the payment to Makate started from March 2001 to February 2019.
Vodacom initially tabled 47 million as a means for compensating Makate for the product, a figure he turned down. With the latest ruling, Kenneth is now set to bag around R20 billion, with the legal fees also set to be settled by Vodacom. Vodacom has been given 30 days to pay Makate what is due.
South Africans chimed in, congratulating Kenneth in what has been a war of attrition against one of the country’s biggest communication companies.
@iNtokazi_P posted: “I’m actually so flippen happy for that Please Call Me guy! Congratulations to him, kunini!!!”
@TakaTina1 posted a Jacob Zuma meme, celebrating Makate’s victory by saying: “Mr please call me is set for life and his generations to come, R2o Billion. He’s going straight into the richest South Africans right behind Patrice Motsepe.”
@fezilemapela gave a thoughtful take on the matter, posing an existential argument for creators as a whole who might’ve been exploited by big companies. He said: “The please call me case will be interesting for people who invent things within companies and are unfairly compensated should they settled, or lose a possible appeal at the constitutional court. No?”