> the court basically put all the burden and problems of proving things around 2870 on Marty Well, yes. As you quoted, the statue itself directs the court to

> the court basically put all the burden and problems of proving things around 2870 on Marty Well, yes. As you quoted, the statue itself directs the court to do that. > They also took a very broad view of what it means to be related to the business. Okay, I've now read the whole opinion and nothing in it surprises me. If your point is that people tend to read secs. 2870-2 less carefully than they should, I am in no position to dispute that. I certainly agree that someone hoping to avail themselves of sec. 2870 would be well advised to be extremely careful -- even as to their choice of employer. But I think there must be employers that don't make a habit of suing former employees when it appears that there's a reasonable chance that the 2870 requirements have been more-or-less met. Lots of Google engineers leave to start startups, I have heard, and I'm sure in plenty of those cases, they had their idea while they were still Google employees. If Google started litigating such cases regularly, they would destroy their reputation as a great place to work, I would think. (I have never worked for Google, so this is just my guess.)