KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 5): The Road Transport Department (RTD) and the Transport Ministry have been issued a letter of demand (LOD) over alleged copyright infringement in relation to the special “MADANI” vehicle number plates.
Hasan Azhari Hashim, programme director with fundraising consultancy firm Ilham Madani Sdn Bhd, is claiming RM 1.3 million from the government entities over misuse and violation of his intellectual property rights and copyrights.
The ministry and the RTD could face legal action should they fail to pay the sum within seven days, as stipulated in the LOD.
In his LOD issued via his lawyers at Raj & Sachs, Hasan claims that he was registered creator and owner of the idea to work alongside the government to issue the special number plates “MADANI 1” to “MADANI 999”.
According to the LOD seen by The Edge, Hasan had written a series of letters to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, and the Prime Minister’s Department from February last year, proposing that he and the government agency work together to sell the number plates.
However, he was informed that existing provisions only permit the RTD to issue the special number plates.
Also included in the LOD was a certificate allegedly from the Intellectual Property Corporation of Malaysia (MyIPO) dated Feb 26, 2023, purportedly acknowledging the copyright of the proposal paper as belonging to Hasan.
However, Hasan alleged that he found out last month via an RTD notice over the issuance of special registration plates with minimum bids of RM100. He claims that the government had used his idea, and thus infringed copyright attributed to him.
The bidding for the special number plates, which ran from Oct 19 till Oct 23, collected a total of RM2.62 million.
According to RTD director general Aedy Fadly Ramli, the number plates “MADANI 6” garnered the highest bid at RM68,888, followed by “MADANI 5” at RM58,001, “MADANI 4” at RM55,000, “MADANI 3” at RM51,111, and “MADANI 33” at RM42,110.
A total of 5,632 made their bids, with 3,263 securing their desired plates.
Aedy Fadly said that proceeds from the sale would be used for government initiatives like MyLesen, the helmet exchange programme, FlySiswa, and Socso payments to taxi drivers.