Creating a concept… without resorting to plagiarism

The Tradweb concept was born in May 1999 and the company Tradweb created in October of the same year.
The concept won an award in the 1st "Création d'entreprises de technologies innovantes" (Innovative Technology Business Creation) national competition headed by the Ministry of National Education, Research and Technology. In December 2000, we were awarded the "Trophée PME 2000" (SME Trophy 2000) organised by Microsoft, Compaq, MCI World Com and 3Com in the "innovative business" category. You could say we got off to a good start!

In February 2000, a press release had already been issued by L&H, announcing its new Internet programme based around a site which strangely resembled our own. The www.itranslator.com site was launched in October 2000. The world of new technologies then learnt about the "L&H financial scandal", the fraud committed by its founders who suspended the L&H security bond from quotation on the Easdaq (Brussels) and Nasdaq (New York) at the end of 2000. The company's 15,000 small stockholders lost their investment.

But that was only the start. A number of sites have continued to plagiarise our concept, the look of our Home Page, some of our page contents and our development and communication strategy. For a while now, we have also noticed the growing trend of placing photos of young women on the home pages of translation sites… you'd be forgiven for thinking that the translation profession had merged with that of modelling!
(www.alis.com)

Some even tried to recruit people who had been involved in the development of our site. We then discovered that Tradweb had a hidden function… the creation of new jobs.
(Cf. www.sispeo.com)

And finally, our commercial development and approach concerning portal sites specialising in B to B, also attracted considerable interest. Some opportunistic sites could not resist copying our concept, hoping to make up for their lack of original ideas and the failure of their business model by resorting to plagiarism.
(www.traducteo.com)

Let us just add that the viable strategy of any company is based on the following simple principles:
1. Create and innovate without "stealing" the ideas of others (however good they may be!)
2. Be able to diversify while maintaining a coherent development strategy.
3. Base yourself on a true profession.
These 3 fundamental principles are within the reach of everyone. So… why not you?

Best regards
Catherine KOSTE
Tradweb General Manager
"The Translation Solution"