Prism has applied for an urgent interdict to stop Lanitor from selling a product based on technology Prism alleges was copied by former employees.
According to the application served on Lanitor, its MD and 10 staff members, they have five days to respond before the issue goes to court.
Prism CEO Alvin Els says the Prism product in question is a platform for sending and receiving SMS messages as part of the group`s m-commerce offering.
"It`s the base for our m-commerce box," he adds.
"We have no interest in stopping people from making a living but when something which has taken us two or three years to develop is suddenly being marketed by someone else within three months, we have to put a stop to it."
Els says the appearance of the technology is despite Lanitor`s MD, Johan Liversage, having signed a restraint of trade agreement when he worked at Prism.
He says Prism became aware of the matter when Lanitor tried to sell the product to a Prism customer.
"It was a smaller customer in Africa, but our argument is that if you are operating in Africa and not SA, then go there and operate. Go set up in Botswana, and don`t operate out of SA."
Prism was granted an order to make a raid on Lanitor`s property, and files taken in the raid were analysed by Deloitte Consulting.
Els says copying information happens often when people leave companies in SA. "People copy disks from servers and so on.
"But what got us was the audacity. If they had waited six or seven months, it probably would not have been a major issue. But they have an identical product, although they say the functionality is different, within two or three months. And so we decided to act."
Liversage could not be reached for comment this morning.
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