[1]. The defendant, a major cellular phone service provider, offers a service, appropriately named the “Please Call Me” service, which allows a cellular phone user who has run out of airtime to request a call from another cellular phone user. This is an action in which the plaintiff alleges that the service was based on his idea. He is ultimately claiming a share of the revenue generated by the defendant through the service.

[2]. The plaintiff alleges that he disclosed his idea to the defendant in return for payment in terms of an oral agreement which he concluded with the defendant. The relief that the plaintiff is claiming, in essence, at this stage (in addition to costs) is a declaratory order that the oral agreement was entered into by the parties and for an order directing the defendant ‘to commence with bona fide negotiations to determine a reasonable remuneration payable to the plaintiff for the use by the defendant [of] the product known as “Please Call Me’”.

[3]. I shall deal with the pleadings and the detail of the evidence in due course. For now, for the purposes of background, the, facts in matter, broadly stated, were the following. The plaintiff, who was working for the defendant as a trainee accountant in its accounts department, had an idea in about November 2000, borne out of his personal circumstances, that the use of the cellular network could be increased ,with a concomitant increase in profit for the defendant, if customers of the defendant, who had no airtime, could “buzz” or send a message using the network to another person with airtime to call them back, possibly resulting in those “buzzed”, or to whom the message had been sent, to call back.

[4]. The plaintiff reduced his idea, which was essentially a business idea, to writing. The plaintiff’s intention was to sell this idea. He consulted with a senior employee of the defendant in its accounts department, one Mr Lazarus Mr Muchenje, for advice on how to go about selling the idea to the defendant. Mr Muchenje, a chartered accountant, who was in charge of a section of the accounts department where the plaintiff was employed, advised him on whom to approach.

[5]. It is not disputed that Mr Muchenje referred the plaintiff to another senior employee of the defendant, Mr Geissler, who, at the time, was a director of the defendant and head of its product development section. The plaintiff alleged and testified that he and Mr Geissler, the latter representing the defendant, concluded the oral agreement in terms of which the defendant would take and test the idea and if it was successful, pay the plaintiff an amount to be negotiated between them, but which represented a share of the revenue generated by the product that was to be developed based on the idea.

[6]. Electronic messages (i.e. “emails”) were exchanged between, inter alios, the plaintiff and Mr Geissler regarding, inter alia, the use and development of the idea. It was common cause that the defendant’s “Please Call Me” service was launched during March 2001.