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Are NDA 'Prior Inventions' Clauses Safe to Sign?
BenderMan asks: "I own a small consulting company. Today I was asked by yet another corporate customer to sign an NDA with the increasingly popular 'Prior Inventions' clause. The gist of it is they want you to provide a list of all your past and current inventions and/or ideas so they can define and protect the intellectual property that they have hired you to build. Like many of us that lay awake at night, whilst the hamster wheel spins new ideas, I've got a number of un-patented works in various stages of development. Given that mutual NDAs only provide one year of protection, I don't feel obligated, nor do I have sufficient time and energy, to fully and properly document my inventions for an NDA. While these clauses are written with good intentions, the reality is that these valuable ideas would be placed in the hands of people that could potentially profit with impunity (Have you priced patents lately?). Unfortunately many companies are not willing to strike this clause from their contracts. Does Slashdot agree that this is a concern, and how have you dealt with these situations?"
Either bend over backwards to please your customers or bend over forwards to be pleased by your customers.
How will you decide?
Film at 11!
(Every time someone puts you in a position where you have to choose between two lesser evils, take the third one or make one up yourself.)
"All you have to do is be fragile and grateful. So stay the underdog." Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
Just add a similar clause for them on to the contract and see them groan... why should you bear the burden of discovery alone? You've got ideas you want to develop later right? So they need to disclose ALL of their ongoing development efforts in all areas of their business and don't let them off easy... if it looks like they're skimping on areas you know they're doing work in call them out.
Or you could follow the letter of the law and disclose a bunch of dumb ideas you had when you were ten and let them know that it might take you a while to get up to the present day.
Hmmm I once had this idea about how to train a monkey by dipping his feet in red paint so he'd know not to climb on the table anymore, then there was my GIJOE para-glider apparatus... it almost worked too!
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
velcro detachable sideburns
Shit.
*crumples and throws away patent application*
Dear Bender,
Take the advice of my good friend Gary Kildall and refuse to sign anything like an NDA. Nothing good can ever come from it.
Sincerely,
Bill Gates III Esq.
So, find a couple clients that both want that NDA executed.
Execute with both of them.
Do some work, foment a crisis, get them both
hammering on each other, stand aside a watch
the fireworks.
I have a patent on this, by the way.
emt 377 emt 4
Yes. List every recipe you have ever created. Have any funky dance moves? Put them in there too. Strummed some funky tunes on your guitar? Throw them in. Crap flood the document so they can't find anything of value.