Intellectual property rights is something we don't hear too much about in Belize - but it's in the law - and now, one Belizean entrepreneur is claiming BTL, broke it when the company gave away his idea - to make someone else rich!
Dale Curtis Swasey claims that he signed a non-disclosure agreement in the form of an Information Exchange Agreement, after which he pitched them the idea of lottery texting as a form of gambling. It was supposed to be seamless and easy for the owner of the lottery game, BTL, and phone users playing the game.
He further claims that for almost 2 years he helped BTL develop the platform and mechanism in their network to enable lottery texting, with the understanding that he would be allowed to sell such a lottery game using their service. He says that the company abruptly ended that relationship and a few weeks later, the popular new game show, Mek Mi Rich, emerged with the very same idea that he helped BTL to develop.
Swasey, who began a court case in December against both Mek Mi Rich and BTL, had his first day in court before Justice Courtney Abel yesterday. His attorney held a press briefing this morning to discuss why this case is so important to him personally:
Kareem Musa - Attorney for Curtis Swasey
"Mr. Swasey came up with this concept in 2012 and he presented to them the entire business plan whereby you would use your phone credit, whether it's pre-paid or post-paid, as I understand it. You would use your phone credit in order to purchase a lottery ticket. Now, I have done my research and I am an attorney at law and I could not have come up with that concept, but I have done my research on the internet and other places and I have not seen it anywhere else, but I stand to be corrected. But, it was certainly a novel idea introduced by Mr. Swasey and shared with BTL. It's not just that idea, he had many meetings. He had many correspondence with the technical staff and from all the email correspondence I can tell you that the technical staff at BTL did not understand the concept at all and Mr. Swasey actually had to teach them over the course of two years - had to teach them how the operating system would work at BTL."
"From January 2012, we now move to August 7th, 2014. After teaching them everything, after sharing all of this confidential information, on the 7th August, just last year, personnel at BTL sent an email to Mr. Swasey and it says that they thank him for his attractive proposal and they express appreciation for his patience and thoroughness in developing the offer, but they ended off by saying, unfortunately, they could not accept his proposal because it was not in line with the strategy of BTL for that fiscal year. But lo and behold, only a few weeks later we started seeing advertisements of this program "Mek mi rich." We started seeing a man coming down a slide with some girls on a beach. We didn't know what it was about - none of us knew what it was about. Certainly Mr. Swasey did not know what it was about, until the gameshow actually started and we see that it is exactly the same type of concept as introduce by Mr. Swasey. Whereby you purchase a lottery ticket by way of sending a text message. Again, this was a concept that he develop, that he introduce and that he sold to BTL. He had many meetings with them and he has not received one copper for it."
Curtis Swasey has a daunting task to prove that the text platform is an idea which he came up with and that it existed nowhere else. Also, he'll have to prove that the model Mek Mi Rich uses is the very same one he gave to BTL, and that the designers of that game didn't discover it on their own. Additionally, he'll have to prove beyond reasonable doubt, and with evidence that BTL somehow shared his idea with the principals of Mek Mi Rich.
Today, we spoke with Naima Barrow, the attorney for Mek Mi Rich, and she told us that Justice Abel struck the case out against her client because there is no evidence to show cause of action. At the case management conference yesterday, Swasey and his attorney did not show what BTL shared with Mek Mi Rich.
This evening, BTL released a statement saying quote, "BTL categorically denies all the allegations made by Mr. Swasey and intends to fully defend the claim currently before the Supreme Court. BTL will refrain from commenting on the details of the case until the matter is fully disposed of by the Court.
Their attorney, Magali Perdomo, has declined to make any further comments.
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