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Non-Compete Agreement Beyond Term of Employment?
stellar7 writes "I work in IT for a large company. They have recently asked me to sign a new non-compete and confidentiality agreement. I signed an agreement when I began employment, but now they want me to sign an updated one. Behind the link are a few paragraphs from the new agreement. It states that the company has a royalty-free license to any 'Invention' I create including up to six months after leaving (and the company fully owns any Invention that relates to the company in this same period). Has anyone signed a similar agreement that reaches beyond the end of employment and includes things not related to the business?"
A. Employee shall promptly and fully disclose in writing to [Company] any inventions, improvements, discoveries, operating techniques, or "know-how", whether patentable or not (hereinafter referred to as "Inventions"), conceived or discovered by Employee, either solely or jointly with others, during the course of Employee's employment with [Company], or within six (6) months thereafter.
B. Employee shall, on the request of [Company], and hereby does, assign to [Company] all of Employee's right, title and interest in any of the Inventions which relate to, or are useful in connection with, any aspect of the business of [Company], as carried on or contemplated at the time the Invention is made, whether or not Employee's duties are directly related thereto. [Company] shall be the sole and absolute owner of any of the Inventions so assigned. Employee shall perform any further acts or execute any papers, at the expense of [Company], which it may consider necessary to secure for [Company] or its successors or assigns any and all rights relating to the Inventions, including patents in the United States and foreign countries.
C. [Company] shall be the sole judge as to whether the Inventions are related to or useful in connection with any aspect of the business of [Company] as earned on or contemplated at the time the Invention is made and as to whether patent applications should be filed in the United States or in foreign countries.
D. [Company] shall have the option of taking a permanent, royalty-free license to manufacture, use, and sell any of the Inventions conceived or discovered by Employee during the course of Employee's employment with [Company], or within six (6) months thereafter, that are not assigned to [Company] under paragraph B. of this Agreement.
A. Employee shall promptly and fully disclose in writing to [Company] any inventions, improvements, discoveries, operating techniques, or "know-how", whether patentable or not (hereinafter referred to as "Inventions"), conceived or discovered by Employee, either solely or jointly with others, during the course of Employee's employment with [Company], or within six (6) months thereafter.
B. Employee shall, on the request of [Company], and hereby does, assign to [Company] all of Employee's right, title and interest in any of the Inventions which relate to, or are useful in connection with, any aspect of the business of [Company], as carried on or contemplated at the time the Invention is made, whether or not Employee's duties are directly related thereto. [Company] shall be the sole and absolute owner of any of the Inventions so assigned. Employee shall perform any further acts or execute any papers, at the expense of [Company], which it may consider necessary to secure for [Company] or its successors or assigns any and all rights relating to the Inventions, including patents in the United States and foreign countries.
C. [Company] shall be the sole judge as to whether the Inventions are related to or useful in connection with any aspect of the business of [Company] as earned on or contemplated at the time the Invention is made and as to whether patent applications should be filed in the United States or in foreign countries.
D. [Company] shall have the option of taking a permanent, royalty-free license to manufacture, use, and sell any of the Inventions conceived or discovered by Employee during the course of Employee's employment with [Company], or within six (6) months thereafter, that are not assigned to [Company] under paragraph B. of this Agreement.
I'll do you one better. My last job fired me a month ago for the neurotic reason of missing a meeting. Not an important meeting. Not even a one time meeting. Just a routine Friday morning meeting which never divulges any useful information what so ever and is pretty much a waste of an hour. Now that's not the amazing part.
The amazing part is sitting there the Monday morning after the meeting listening to HR read me the termination letter. They've brought in the previous HR lady AND the company lawyer (which they don't routinely do) because they're scared of me. Mysterious powers of network admins, I guess. Then after reading me a specially written termination letter (this is a company with a 100%+ yearly turnover rate, so their typical letter is a form to save time) the HR lady has the following to say:
"Typically, when we hire an employee, they sign a confidentiality agreement."
"OK."
"You don't have one in your employee file."
I begin to smell where this is going, but due to sheer disbelief, I play dumb, "OK. Are we done?"
"Could you please sign this one now?"
Yep. They actually asked it. WHILE they were firing me. I didn't know which impressed me more... the amount of nerve it took them to tell her to ask me that, or the stupidity it would require to believe in a million years somebody might comply. "Uh, no?" I responded.
Now at this point, the lady seems visibly shaken. The big wigs watching her are obviously not pleased that she couldn't work a miracle. "Is there uh... is there a particular reason why you don't uh... don't want to?"
A million things run through my mind. Illegal things they've done, mostly. But I decide it's best not to let them know what I know and respond, "Beside the fact that you're asking me for a favor as you fire me? I just don't feel like signing anything right now."
Still makes me laugh. I've never worked at a more neurotic, incompetent, worthless company in my entire life. Had a previous employer before the last one that tried to float a non-compete to all the employees after we were working there. We got together and all said "Nah, we don't like the terms. We're not signing." and they never asked again.
But asking someone while you're firing them to sign a confidentiality agreement? Amazing.