Just when things were starting to look up for you mobile after its sale to Safaricom and Airtel, now the Telcom finds itself right smack in the middle of a lawsuit pitting Onfon Media against Dubai’s Imimobile with the former accusing the latter of plagiarism.
The Business Daily reports that Onfon media had won a Ks. 100m contract that would see it supply a ring back tone that explained callers’ names, only to have it revoked and given to Imimobile.
The Dubai-based firm said to have colluded with Vasonomics Kenya to plagiarise its software program thus robbing it of a lucrative contract from YUmobile.
“The situation is so bad that as a direct breach of Onfon’s copyright by Imimobile and Vasonomics, the content which was being offered on the Yu Mobile platform have now been pulled down and replaced with the copied and plagiarised work of the defendants,” Onfon says in court papers.
Now OnFon wants the defendants in the suit; Imimobile and Vasonomics compelled to deposit Sh100 million to the court as security in case it wins the claim, adding that the two have reaped on the final product and yet never contributed to its development.
Onfon insists it secured copyrights for the ring back tone in April last year, therefore making the software used by Imimobile and Vasonomics plagiarized content, a violation to their intellectual property rights
Imimobile and Vasonomics have not responded to the suit and Justice Francis Gikonyo ordered them to file defense statements to the suit before April 29 when he will give directions of how the court proceedings will take place.
In the meantime, Imimobile has been ordered to stop using the product until the matter is determined as Onfon told the judge that if the Dubai firm contonied using the ring back tone they would never get compensation for it.
“I grant a temporary injunction against Imimobile to restrain any infringement of the copyright by them. Vasonomics is given 14 days to file a replying affidavit. The matter will be mentioned on April 29 for further direction,” he said.