Dear Sir
While we are celebrating jio e-commerce integration with WhatsApp.
I would like to draw attention to the fact that every Indian & common man have equal rights to innovate and execute their creative ideas.
India's 135 crore people is a hub of many talented and creative minds. This is not necessary that innovations have to originate from large corporate houses only.
I am Santosh Khalkar, founder & CEO of 1hour.app. We have been working on a hyperlocal chat platform to integrate small kirana stores, local retailers and farmers for the last two years. The platform's main objective is to allow customers to order goods via a CHAT platform. Sounds similar to Jio mart ? Yes, because it is; in every letter of the spirit.
We also filed a patent application with Indian Patent Office (patent application no: 201921047441, WIPO - PCT/IB2019/060893) and started looking for investment to launch the platform in multiple cities in India.
During the process we approached Jio and submitted our proposal. Jio showed initial interest on our project. We had multiple meetings, calls and emails disclosing and sharing our ideas, business cases and project IPs in detail.
We thought that our concept will be appreciated and we will raise the capital required with them to launch the platform.
Initially Jio showed great interest in the project but later decided to give it a skip.
I am stating this with great responsibility and have full documentary evidence(s).
In today's digital world, it's very strenuous to spoof electronic trails and we don't have any intent of doing that.
While as an Indian citizen I'm happy that the idea which we seeded and incepted has been put in large scale execution.
However I'm deeply saddened and shocked by the means the concept has been snitched from young and small aspirational entrepreneurs like us.
Here are my direct questions -
1. Does a common Indian have no right to innovate and get credited on their ideas?
2. Does big projects need to come from established big players like Facebook and Jio only ?
3. Does India's commercial monopoly guidelines and rules doesn't apply to Facebook and Jio?
4. Will the law ever prevail and give justice to the sentiments of millions of young entrepreneurs like me?
While we are not opposed to any idea which can help the general population of India. However everyone can see this is not done with an intention of charity. There are serious business goals and objectives.
A better approach would have been to give due credit to the founders of the concept. This would have been a gracious and fair manner.
Though there is an exceptionally bleak ray of hope in this complex matter of IP claim in the current judicial process and it might take years if not decades to get a ruling.
But we are considering pursuing this case and seeking justice with our very tiny resources.
Finally I would like to sincerely appeal, to realize the sacrifices & hard efforts put in their sole project by young entrepreneurs in India.
It's extremely unfair to borrow the project details without any consent so-ever and in the process completely bury the aspirations of the creators.
I hope the matter will be resolved amicably.
Santosh Khalkar
CEO & Founder
1hour.app
Phone - 8605452112 / 8975690464
Email - santosh@1hour-tech.com