Once you no longer work for the company, all bets are off. Just because you employed someone for a while doesn't mean you retain ownership of the knowledge they

Once you no longer work for the company, all bets are off. Just because you employed someone for a while doesn't mean you retain ownership of the knowledge they learned while working for you. Barring of course, specific trade secrets or patents. But I have seen none of that here. And, "this kind of looks like what we have" is not a valid legal argument.