IP Protection for Kenyan Blockchain Startups

Guard Your Brilliance: Lessons from Popote and Safaricom

In a world where everyone is a founder on LinkedIn, it;s easy to forget the price of brilliance. When you have a good idea, you’ll know it. And having that just snatched away is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

If you havent heard of this, here’s what happened: Popote Innovations Ltd learned that lesson in the hardest way. The startup claimed Safaricom used their idea to build the M-Pesa Super App. An arbitrator initially awarded Popote nearly a billion shillings, but the High Court later overturned the ruling. You see, Safaricom never signed the partnership agreement. That single missing signature turned a dream collaboration into a cautionary tale. In the corporate world, trust only counts when it’s written down.

IP Protection in web3

In blockchain, openness is both your shield and your weakness. You might have to share your whitepapers, tokenomics, and architecture to build trust with their communities. This transparency drives innovation but also exposes ideas to imitation. When your protocol is open by design, secrecy is no longer your defense.

In this space, your real advantage becomes speed, execution, and the strength of your ecosystem.Still, transparency does not mean vulnerability. Its also important to make sure that the parts that make your product unique, the front-end design, your integration layers, or your proprietary smart contract logic, must be guarded.

Hackathons: Where Inspiration Meets Risk

Hackathons are an interesting one. There’s no need to be paranoid and skeptikal about everything, but it would definately help if organizers were clearer about their terms of participation.
I know a non zero amount of people who wre concerned about pitching to judges and sponsors from the very companies that might later compete with them.
Because a handshake and a LinkedIn post wont hold when a lawyer steps in, clear license and IP terms will be a welcomed blessing.

Partnerships

An NDA keeps your secrets safe, but it doesn’t guarantee payment. Once you’re past the discussion stage, you will need real contractsones that define ownership, royalties, and usage.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) sets the tone for collaboration and can back you up if the other side walks away after using your ideas. A Licensing Agreement ensures that your specific module or system remains yours, even if a partnership collapses. These must be signed and dated by authorized representatives. Never rely on “we’ll sign it later.”
Innovations look trivial until someone else is making millions.

A Billion Shillings

Allegedly, (I’ve got to say allegedly because I cant afford a good lawyer right now) Popote Innovations did everything right except the one thing that mattered most: They never got a signature. The court didn’t dispute their creativity or effort, only their lack of formal proof. That’s a brutal truth every startup must face. The law doesn’t reward who built first, only the first to document it.

The Kenyan innovation space is full of promise, but it’s also full of sharks. Guard your brilliance. Demand signatures. Protect your work before sharing it. Get the paper