6 ms·

From your comments I gather you might not understand the problem. Were Soft Engs simply to do 'work' then you would be absolutely right. But in a world of IP

From your comments I gather you might not understand the problem. Were Soft Engs simply to do 'work' then you would be absolutely right. But in a world of IP ... it's a different story. Company ABC brings you in, trains you on their know-how and core IP, which took a lot of struggle, $, and R&D to create - then you leave, go to a competitor, and effectively communicate and give away ABC Corps. most valuable asset. Non-competes can certainly applied far too aggressively, esp. in situations where there is not merit ... but there are definitely cases wherein I think it does make sense. I'm thinking companies like DWAVE in Vancouver that built the 'first' qubit/quantum computer. The guy spent his whole life developing that tech. It's feasible that Google just grabs up some of the team and internalizes all that work and effort for the price of a few headcount. It's a real problem in some cases, but worse - very difficult to parameterize.

bsder 10y ago
> Company ABC brings you in, trains you on their know-how and core IP, which took a lot of struggle, $, and R&D to create - then you leave, go to a competitor, and effectively communicate and give away ABC Corps. most valuable asset. Um, that's covered by an NDA--Non-Disclosure Agreement. Those are generally QUITE enforceable, even in California and often last for 3 to 5 years. Non-compete is quite different.
- jomamaxx 10y ago
  Your comments about NDA's are not quite right. NDA's do not capture a lot of the essential issue. Pragmatically speaking, it's nary impossible to work in some fields, and then move to a competing firm without passing on know how or trade secrets. Even the 'manner of approach' to a problem, while it may not be a trade secret, is basically a core part of the 'true IP' that is developed by a company. Using DWAVE as an example - there are thousands of 'little things' that they will have had to figure out along the way - from which parts to use, which vendors work well, material types, tooling, physical test units, support gear (like cooling etc.) - all of this is IP. Any number of small issues can be the 'key ingredients' that make or break a project. When DWAVE spends a year trying to figure out how to keep some material at a steady temperature in order to bind it to another ... then that's IP. It's a paradox when nearly one's entire skill set is tantamount to 'trade secrets' but it's feasible. An NDA - in the broadest sense - in this case would be a de-facto 'non compete' - because there's hardly a thing this Eng could do for Google that wouldn't involve giving away important information. In case you guys are not aware: hiring people to steal away trade secrets and know-how is very common in the Valley, often by major players and firms. If you haven't noticed - the biggest and most successful tech companies all have either natural monopolies (i.e. Facebook/Twitter with network externalities), or insurmountable massive barriers to entry keeping others out (i.e. Apple having MacOS/iOS, a retail distribution chain, massive leverage over supply chain, and market share). In business scenarios it happens as well, in less 'protectable' scenarios. Apple snared away tons of BlackBerry sales/BD execs - not because they were necessarily skilled or talented - but because of their established relationships within carrier channels. Apple was buying access to Verizon and AT&T - not random sales guys abilities.
  - Hondor 10y ago
    That's certainly a problem about salesmen taking their clients and other relationships with them. For small sales-only companies anyway, where the company doesn't provide much infrastructure beyond a desk and a phone. But in those cases, maybe the company really is a bit worthless and it's the salesmen that created the value mostly independently and should be able to keep it. Don't forget that not only do companies lose their "IP" with outgoing workers, but they also get more free with incoming ones. Perhaps it balances out but with a net positive effect since effective skills get spread around the industry instead of being locked up whereever they were discovered. I think this is part of a bigger argument about how much IP protection is enough to encourage innovation but not so much that it stifles the market. You seem to be advocating protecting every last little bit of knowledge but perhaps that's stifling for the economy overall even if it is more fair for individual members.
    - TheCoelacanth 10y ago
      Even in the case of salesmen, a non-solicitation agreement takes care of that just as well as a non-compete does.
  - michaelmrose 10y ago
    I don't buy for one second that anything not covered by trade secrets, patents, or nda ought to be protected. You bought the employees labor for a finite duration not the contents of their skull. Intellectual property is a bit of a misnomer it has very little in common with property of the standard sort and the burden falls upon you to explain why we ought to create greater artificial scarcity for imaginary property.
    - jomamaxx 10y ago
      "I don't buy for one second that anything not covered by trade secrets, patents, or nda ought to be protected. You bought the employees labor for a finite duration not the contents of their skull." + My point is nearly everything that you learn at a company could be considered a 'trade secret' - depending on the company or project. In the example I gave, I listed a variety of situations in which minute operational skills and knowledge, all contribute to be 'key information' regarding the development of the product, and can essentially be 'trade secrets'. Ergo - it would be nary difficult to work for a competitor and not give that information up.
drawkbox 10y ago
An NDA would suffice in that case. Not being able to work work in the same field for up to 2 years (non-compete) and not disclosing internal ip, processes, etc when you go work at another company (NDA) in the field are much different. Preventing someone from working in a field and not disclosing or sharing secrets/ip are two different animals. NDAs are useful and I use them myself when contractors work with us, but non-competes create a very master/slave type of relationship, ownership of someone's skill that they need to work. Paid non-competes are something that isn't as bad but non paid non-competes are horrible for the little guy and really a form of ownership that really goes against 'pro-business' ideals for smaller companies trying to compete while seemingly being 'pro-business' for the company doling out non-competes (big fish). Contractors can't be told where to work, how to work or times to work, why are we allowing companies to tell skilled workers what they can and can't work on after the contract is up aside from what is under NDA?
- Gibbon1 10y ago
  My first exposure to non-competes was from a guy I did some work for. He was a network firmware/driver guy back in the 80's/90's. Took a six month contract with a European company. After the contract ended his recruiter got him another gig. When the original company found out they threatened to sue him. Because they said he had signed a five year non-compete.
  - walshemj 10y ago
    5 years lol no way is that enforceable
elmigranto 10y ago
On the other hand, you work at a company for most of your professional life, and become an expert in a field you love. One day you are no longer employed for some reason, but due to non-compete there is no way to get a job you want, since your expertise is somewhat niche. So you are forced to build websites or sell coffee for two years. Or drop your life in US and work some other place. If the person from your quantum computer example gets fired with non-compete, it would mean being forced out of he field with 100% certainty. Quite a leverage for a company. In my opinion, there is still enough stuff out there benefiting corps over employees even if non-competes go away.
- greglindahl 10y ago
  Well, the counter-example is that the tech industry in California completely collapsed because... oh, wait, we're doing OK.
  - pmontra 10y ago
    According to other posts here, CA banned non competes some 150 years ago.
    - throw_away_777 10y ago
      The post you were replying to was sarcastic. The point is that if non-competes really were essential to companies, you would expect to see that reflected in CA. Instead the most notable thing is CA has higher salaries.
- sjg007 10y ago
  Take the job and let them sue. Scotus won't enforce a noncompete.
  - greglindahl 10y ago
    Non-competes are successfully enforced (outside CA) all of the time. Just take a look at the tech press, there are quite a few articles about it.
aikah 10y ago
> But in a world of IP ... it's a different story. If the employee violates the IP then sue him for that. No need for non-compete agreements. If you're worried the employee will steal your clients then you're not giving your clients a good deal at first place, and the employee shouldn't be prevented from working with your clients. This is a free market. Non compete agreements are completely anti-freedom of both enterprise and work. > Company ABC brings you in, trains you on their know-how and core IP, which took a lot of struggle, $, and R&D to create - then you leave, go to a competitor, and effectively communicate and give away ABC Corps. most valuable asset. Then the burden of proof should lie with the previous company, there shouldn't be any possibility of preemptive clause within the former contract. If it's clear corporate secrets were leaked then sue. If you don't want your employee go work somewhere else then compensate him, that's the problem here , most of the time there is no compensation. It doesn't matter how much R&D was created. That's the role of patents to deal with that thing.
- jomamaxx 10y ago
  "It doesn't matter how much R&D was created. That's the role of patents to deal with that thing." I'm beginning to think none of you have ever worked in companies that actually produce IP. First off - that's not what patents are for. Patents protect publicly known information - not trade secrets. And they don't do it very well. There are very few things you can defend with a patent. What companies are concerned with is 'trade secrets' and 'know how' - and it's a serious thing. "Then the burden of proof should lie with the previous company, there shouldn't be any possibility of preemptive clause within the former contract." If you work at DWAVE for 5 years and learn everything you know about Quantum Computing there - and go to Google to work on Quantum Computing - then there is basically a 100% chance that you are passing on 'know how' and 'trade secrets' - otherwise - Google would not hire you. Your comments about customers etc. are irrelevant with respect to IP issues. If you work for ABC corp and they make a 'sales automation tool' - and you go off and build your own 'sales automation tool' - then fine. It's not about IP or trade secrets. You can do as you like. But for other types of things, no way. You work at Nuance on Speech recognition - then you leave and build a nearly identical speech recognition system? That's probably IP theft. There would not be any technology if IP could not be protected in some reasonable way. I'm not suggesting that many of these contracts are crazy - and that there can be absurd limitations and weird corner cases - of course it's very tricky - but companies deserve the right to protect their IP in some manner.

bsder 10y ago

> Company ABC brings you in, trains you on their know-how and core IP, which took a lot of struggle, $, and R&D to create - then you leave, go to a competitor, and effectively communicate and give away ABC Corps. most valuable asset. Um, that's covered by an NDA--Non-Disclosure Agreement. Those are generally QUITE enforceable, even in California and often last for 3 to 5 years. Non-compete is quite different.

jomamaxx 10y ago
Your comments about NDA's are not quite right. NDA's do not capture a lot of the essential issue. Pragmatically speaking, it's nary impossible to work in some fields, and then move to a competing firm without passing on know how or trade secrets. Even the 'manner of approach' to a problem, while it may not be a trade secret, is basically a core part of the 'true IP' that is developed by a company. Using DWAVE as an example - there are thousands of 'little things' that they will have had to figure out along the way - from which parts to use, which vendors work well, material types, tooling, physical test units, support gear (like cooling etc.) - all of this is IP. Any number of small issues can be the 'key ingredients' that make or break a project. When DWAVE spends a year trying to figure out how to keep some material at a steady temperature in order to bind it to another ... then that's IP. It's a paradox when nearly one's entire skill set is tantamount to 'trade secrets' but it's feasible. An NDA - in the broadest sense - in this case would be a de-facto 'non compete' - because there's hardly a thing this Eng could do for Google that wouldn't involve giving away important information. In case you guys are not aware: hiring people to steal away trade secrets and know-how is very common in the Valley, often by major players and firms. If you haven't noticed - the biggest and most successful tech companies all have either natural monopolies (i.e. Facebook/Twitter with network externalities), or insurmountable massive barriers to entry keeping others out (i.e. Apple having MacOS/iOS, a retail distribution chain, massive leverage over supply chain, and market share). In business scenarios it happens as well, in less 'protectable' scenarios. Apple snared away tons of BlackBerry sales/BD execs - not because they were necessarily skilled or talented - but because of their established relationships within carrier channels. Apple was buying access to Verizon and AT&T - not random sales guys abilities.
- Hondor 10y ago
  That's certainly a problem about salesmen taking their clients and other relationships with them. For small sales-only companies anyway, where the company doesn't provide much infrastructure beyond a desk and a phone. But in those cases, maybe the company really is a bit worthless and it's the salesmen that created the value mostly independently and should be able to keep it. Don't forget that not only do companies lose their "IP" with outgoing workers, but they also get more free with incoming ones. Perhaps it balances out but with a net positive effect since effective skills get spread around the industry instead of being locked up whereever they were discovered. I think this is part of a bigger argument about how much IP protection is enough to encourage innovation but not so much that it stifles the market. You seem to be advocating protecting every last little bit of knowledge but perhaps that's stifling for the economy overall even if it is more fair for individual members.
  - TheCoelacanth 10y ago
    Even in the case of salesmen, a non-solicitation agreement takes care of that just as well as a non-compete does.
- michaelmrose 10y ago
  I don't buy for one second that anything not covered by trade secrets, patents, or nda ought to be protected. You bought the employees labor for a finite duration not the contents of their skull. Intellectual property is a bit of a misnomer it has very little in common with property of the standard sort and the burden falls upon you to explain why we ought to create greater artificial scarcity for imaginary property.
  - jomamaxx 10y ago
    "I don't buy for one second that anything not covered by trade secrets, patents, or nda ought to be protected. You bought the employees labor for a finite duration not the contents of their skull." + My point is nearly everything that you learn at a company could be considered a 'trade secret' - depending on the company or project. In the example I gave, I listed a variety of situations in which minute operational skills and knowledge, all contribute to be 'key information' regarding the development of the product, and can essentially be 'trade secrets'. Ergo - it would be nary difficult to work for a competitor and not give that information up.

drawkbox 10y ago

An NDA would suffice in that case. Not being able to work work in the same field for up to 2 years (non-compete) and not disclosing internal ip, processes, etc when you go work at another company (NDA) in the field are much different. Preventing someone from working in a field and not disclosing or sharing secrets/ip are two different animals. NDAs are useful and I use them myself when contractors work with us, but non-competes create a very master/slave type of relationship, ownership of someone's skill that they need to work. Paid non-competes are something that isn't as bad but non paid non-competes are horrible for the little guy and really a form of ownership that really goes against 'pro-business' ideals for smaller companies trying to compete while seemingly being 'pro-business' for the company doling out non-competes (big fish). Contractors can't be told where to work, how to work or times to work, why are we allowing companies to tell skilled workers what they can and can't work on after the contract is up aside from what is under NDA?

Gibbon1 10y ago
My first exposure to non-competes was from a guy I did some work for. He was a network firmware/driver guy back in the 80's/90's. Took a six month contract with a European company. After the contract ended his recruiter got him another gig. When the original company found out they threatened to sue him. Because they said he had signed a five year non-compete.
- walshemj 10y ago
  5 years lol no way is that enforceable

elmigranto 10y ago

On the other hand, you work at a company for most of your professional life, and become an expert in a field you love. One day you are no longer employed for some reason, but due to non-compete there is no way to get a job you want, since your expertise is somewhat niche. So you are forced to build websites or sell coffee for two years. Or drop your life in US and work some other place. If the person from your quantum computer example gets fired with non-compete, it would mean being forced out of he field with 100% certainty. Quite a leverage for a company. In my opinion, there is still enough stuff out there benefiting corps over employees even if non-competes go away.

greglindahl 10y ago
Well, the counter-example is that the tech industry in California completely collapsed because... oh, wait, we're doing OK.
- pmontra 10y ago
  According to other posts here, CA banned non competes some 150 years ago.
  - throw_away_777 10y ago
    The post you were replying to was sarcastic. The point is that if non-competes really were essential to companies, you would expect to see that reflected in CA. Instead the most notable thing is CA has higher salaries.
sjg007 10y ago
Take the job and let them sue. Scotus won't enforce a noncompete.
- greglindahl 10y ago
  Non-competes are successfully enforced (outside CA) all of the time. Just take a look at the tech press, there are quite a few articles about it.

aikah 10y ago

> But in a world of IP ... it's a different story. If the employee violates the IP then sue him for that. No need for non-compete agreements. If you're worried the employee will steal your clients then you're not giving your clients a good deal at first place, and the employee shouldn't be prevented from working with your clients. This is a free market. Non compete agreements are completely anti-freedom of both enterprise and work. > Company ABC brings you in, trains you on their know-how and core IP, which took a lot of struggle, $, and R&D to create - then you leave, go to a competitor, and effectively communicate and give away ABC Corps. most valuable asset. Then the burden of proof should lie with the previous company, there shouldn't be any possibility of preemptive clause within the former contract. If it's clear corporate secrets were leaked then sue. If you don't want your employee go work somewhere else then compensate him, that's the problem here , most of the time there is no compensation. It doesn't matter how much R&D was created. That's the role of patents to deal with that thing.

jomamaxx 10y ago
"It doesn't matter how much R&D was created. That's the role of patents to deal with that thing." I'm beginning to think none of you have ever worked in companies that actually produce IP. First off - that's not what patents are for. Patents protect publicly known information - not trade secrets. And they don't do it very well. There are very few things you can defend with a patent. What companies are concerned with is 'trade secrets' and 'know how' - and it's a serious thing. "Then the burden of proof should lie with the previous company, there shouldn't be any possibility of preemptive clause within the former contract." If you work at DWAVE for 5 years and learn everything you know about Quantum Computing there - and go to Google to work on Quantum Computing - then there is basically a 100% chance that you are passing on 'know how' and 'trade secrets' - otherwise - Google would not hire you. Your comments about customers etc. are irrelevant with respect to IP issues. If you work for ABC corp and they make a 'sales automation tool' - and you go off and build your own 'sales automation tool' - then fine. It's not about IP or trade secrets. You can do as you like. But for other types of things, no way. You work at Nuance on Speech recognition - then you leave and build a nearly identical speech recognition system? That's probably IP theft. There would not be any technology if IP could not be protected in some reasonable way. I'm not suggesting that many of these contracts are crazy - and that there can be absurd limitations and weird corner cases - of course it's very tricky - but companies deserve the right to protect their IP in some manner.