Protecting Goan Ideas

In 2002 Divya Narendra, an Indian American conceptualises an idea of a social networking site, involves his Harvard classmates, twin brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. They name it Havard connection and later change to ConnectU.com. They hire a programmer Sanjay Mavinkurve for writing the codes, but Sanjay has to leave the project, because it is time for his graduation and cannot resist a job offer from Google. Divya then approaches Victor Gao, who takes over the project and by the time Gao has to leave, quite a bit of coding on front-end pages, registration system, database, back-end coding, and a way to connect users with each other, is completed. Gao, before leaving, recommends Divya and team to approach Mark Zuckerberg which they do. Zuckerberg is roped in the project to complete the unfinished work and sweat equity in the partnership is verbally agreed.

 

Zuckerberg takes over a fairly accomplished site and though his first reaction is that the project can be finished in a matter of days, he has a change of heart and starts deliberately delaying the project. Meantime, he is already busy coding a parallel site with the same concept, completes and launches the site which is now known as the famous networking site facebook.com, leaving Divya and Winklevoss’s flabbergasted.

 

This is not a fiction story smartly dramatised in the movie ‘The Social Network’, but a fairly true account of how Facebook was born. There will be disputed versions of the story, but the fact that Divya and Winklevoss’s were awarded US$65 million in cash and stock options as part of the settlement against Facebook, only goes to show that the original idea was plagiarised to a great extent. Apparently, what did Zuckerberg in, were email transcripts between Zuckerberg to Divya-Winklevoss’s, that exposed his delaying tactics, and more damning emails between Zuckerberg and friends where he mentioned his intentions to deceive.

 

What has the Facebook saga got to do with Goa, the first striking similarity is: Divya-Winklevoss’s like most Goans acted naïve. They preferred a verbal agreement to a written one. The only thing that saved them is that the event occurred in the United States, a country which respects and understands the power of a good idea, its financial potential and protects original thinkers.

 

Imagine this scenario playing out in Goa, let alone the dispute dragging on for decades; Divya-Winklevoss’s would be condemned, confused and made to look dumb. Our record in protecting and monetising ideas is very dismal. We readily accept the person’s idea but not the person.

 

A small example; do we know the name of the toddy tapper that made the first bottle of feni, never mind the type and taste. For that matter do we know who filled that first goan sausage? Let’s not refer history books, both might have died poor, not knowing what they invented. Yet today we are proud and ready to be part of that idea.

 

Repeating past mistakes will be naïve and therefore Generation Next Goans must start showing discretion when it comes to protecting and propagating their ideas, however trivial they may seem at the time. Maintaining confidentiality from conceptualisation of an idea to the actual deployment is one delicate process and even though one might be forced to discuss ideas with some people along the way, one must never shy away to sign a non-disclosure agreement. People with integrity will be more than willing to sign one.

 

After we have exhausted all natural resources of Goa to create wealth, Generation Next Goans will have to depend on game changing ideas to make it big. It will be a pity if these ideas are not monetised and the originator is not fully compensated. Today courts in Goa have endless land property disputes to settle, it will be imprudent of us to think that intellectual property disputes will not reach courts, especially when the stakes get high. Let’s not be naïve in thinking that people like Zuckerberg do not exist in Goa.

 

(Above Article appeared on Herald 23rd September 2011)