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The invalidity of non-compete clauses and the inability to take IP away from employees are, perhaps, geese laying golden eggs for California. It can be argued t
by king07828 9y ago
The invalidity of non-compete clauses and the inability to take IP away from employees are, perhaps, geese laying golden eggs for California. It can be argued that they give phenomenal power to employees that figure out the right way to do something and punish employers that won't listen. As a hypothetical, a former employee might start a competing company and let the market figure out who is right. Without these, it can be argued that employees are less motivated to figure things out because they have no way to capitalize on their ideas unless the decision makers of the employer (whom they probably may never meet in their lifetime) buy in to the idea. [1]
[1] This is not legal advice.
- malcolmgreaves 9y agoYour understanding of CA labor law is a bit off. Employees cannot have a side business that competes with their employed business. E.g. if I work for Salesforce, I can't make a side project that does sales client / customer tracking. But I could make a Twitter clone and market that. The IP protections are important because they mean that anyone can actually start a business, let it grow on the side, then, when ready, jump ship. All of this without fear that your employer, who is doing nothing for the side business that you're working on, will come and take it all. This key piece of legislation enables most of SVs success.
- kornish 9y ago(hey, Malcolm!) Do you know how competition is measured? How similar or dissimilar can side projects?
- cableshaft 9y agoI work in the Midwest, and being worried about noncompetes and ownership of IP out of the office clauses has had a strong dampening effect on my motivation to work on anything software related on the side while I've been employed, for the most part. It's actually part of what started getting me into board game design in my off time, because there's no way my companies could have a valid claim against that.
- sjg007 9y agoI wouldn't worry about noncompetes and IP issues. Most likely your company won't care and if you are wildly successful you can buy out their interest.
- twunde 9y agoFor most companies with IP clauses, the company owns 100% of the IP (and your company). Additionally, VCs won't invest if there are problems with the IP.