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MA Gov. Wants To Ban Non-Competes; Will It Matter?
curtwoodward (2147628) writes "Entrepreneurs in Massachusetts say the state's legal enforcement of non-competition agreements hurts innovation — if you're going to get sued by Big Company X, you're probably not going to leave for a startup in the same industry. But those contracts have powerful supporters, including EMC, which is by far the state's largest tech company. Gov. Deval Patrick is finally picking a side in the debate by introducing his own bill to outlaw non-competes and adopt trade-secrets protections instead. Just one catch: he's a lame duck, and will be out of office in January."
> taking any kind of IP and running away with it, which would basically kill the industry
How do you get from 'taking IP' to 'killing the industry'?
The free flow of ideas and techniques is what drives technology and industry.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Banning non-competes hasn't prevented Silicon Valley from flourishing, and I would argue it has even fostered progress.
How do you get from 'taking IP' to 'killing the industry'?
The free flow of ideas and techniques is what drives technology and industry.
Well taking IP has certainly driven technology in China, right?
I fully support this. I work for EMC in Massachusetts. I think my non-compete clause as a regular engineer only comes into play if I take a significant ownership position in a competing company, but that pretty much eliminates any possibility of me doing a startup.
What I really want to see is the elimination of trade secret restrictions on employee salaries. Employees should be free to discuss their salaries. I'm sure they don't want a survey to show that engineers with similar experience have radically different salaries depending on immigration status (wild speculation on my part, but since I can't talk to my H1-B friends, wild speculation is all I have).
In the US too, for that matter... for those who aren't up on their history. Taking IP is beneficial for any industry up to the point where the local players have a lockhold on the IP. At that point, they tend to stagnate, and others taking their IP kills their business structure. This is the reason the US declared independence in the first place (the UK owned the shipping routes and the taxation structure).
There's a difference between "taking IP" and competing in the same industry, Unless you consider a person's skills and knowledge to be the intellectual property of an employer (in which case you may as well argue that every employee that leaves a job should be forcibly lobotomized)
Ex employee here, my lawyer pretty much laughed at the incredible reach of EMC's employment agreement, which effectively states that "If at any time, any point in the future, you publish an idea, which we believe you may have originally thought of while working for us, even though you never used it, wrote it down, or discussed it with anyone during your employment; you agree to immediately turn over all rights to said idea, including buying out the rights from any co-creators, at your own expense".
Apple, of course, invented their UI all by themselves, right? Never took any ideas from Xerox. Nope. ... Nope.
And Microsoft invented everything all by themselves, right? Never took anything from Apple or BSD or
And the entire movie industry isn't based on IP theft either. They never moved west to avoid Edison's patent lawyers. Nope.
Yeah. Only China.
Please, don't give management any ideas.
Seems like it depends. If you're an Oracle DBA, then a non-compete won't really matter. Your unlikely to part of the development of something that unique in the industry your company is in. Signing a non-compete would be silly and pointless, but of course you probably have to sign one anyway because your company wants you to be more beholden to them. Depending on what area you live in it may or may not be easy to find a job at a company in a different industry.
But then let's say your specialty is real-time embedded OS kernel development, and your company's industry is real-time embedded OS. If you sign a non-compete, you're probably stuck with that company and so they are less likely to treat you as well to keep you so it pretty much screws over the employee. OTOH, if there is no noncompete, then what if that company comes up with a really innovative way of doing something, then you go to work at another company and start doing it that way, then it's the first company that gets screwed. This is why it's not so clear-cut whether or not they should be illegal.
It's really a political question whether you want to lean towards socialist, where the employee and startups/entrepreneurs benefit, or lean corporatist where campaign contributors, er, I mean job creators (I couldn't keep a straight face while I typed that) benefit.
Yeah to the point where all the big players illegally engaged in price fixing and non-poaching agreements.
CA isn't as liberal as you fools think. It's just smoke and mirrors.
You want me to sign a non-compete? Ok, then sign mine:
You, the employer, agree not to hire any person to fill my position (or other open positions which have substantially similar responsibilities and skill requirements) when I leave the company.
Fuck them. They're stupid. Who cares if morons do or do not have noncompetes. It's not like it matters since the people there are so stupid.
It's worth noting that the Mitt Romney who was elected in Massachusetts was a politician who the Mitt Romney that ran for president was bitterly opposed to on the majority of issues, and spent a fair amount of time overtly attacking, along with the filthy liberals who had elected him.
The fact that these were the same man suggests that Mitt Romney is some sort of mendacious fuckweasel whose relationship with the truth is so complicated at this point that he probably can't even lie properly anymore; but they were practically different candidates for all operational purposes.
We don't have to speculate. California law severely limits the enforcement of non-competes. It seems to work well there, so it probably will in Massachusetts.
Do you not realize what a non-compete says? If you work as (for example) as a network admin you cannot leave Company A and go work for ANY OTHER company anywhere as a network admin. If they were commonly enforced you would effectively need to change careers every time you changed jobs. Do you really not see a problem with that?
I started contracting as a server, network and AD admin with one company in 2000, changed to another in 2004, moved to a security company doing server and network administration in 2008, to a different one in 2013, and finally took my current position this year. I had to sign a non-compete as part of the hiring paperwork at all of the jobs before this one. If companies in Washington actually enforced these things I would have been stuck at the same employer for the last 14 years.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
And you've taken away the I-tag again! I don't know why I'm still coming back here...
Apple, of course, invented their UI all by themselves, right? Never took any ideas from Xerox. Nope.
Nope. They bought the rights from Xerox. Different thing entirely. Micorsoft and the movie industry, though - they wer another matter and have the lawsuits (and subsequent settlement in the case of Microsoft) to prove it.
I wish the Apple-haters around here would at least get their history straight. I'm not an Apple fanboy. However, I am a computer history fanboy and I wish the amateurs would at least not keep spreading misinformation.
That is all.
Nope. They bought the rights from Xerox.
If they bought the rights from Xerox then why, in the middle of the Apple/Microsoft suit, did Xerox try to sue them for infringement?
In the midst of the Apple v. Microsoft lawsuit, Xerox also sued Apple alleging that Mac's GUI was heavily based on Xerox's.
Apple purchased the Xerox patents later.
You don't work in the tech industry I take it. I've yet to see a non-compete that offered three years of compensation (typical blackout period that I've seen).
Even if companies did offer three years of compensation, by the time you got to the end of that three years, you would be three years out of date and three years out of a job, and would be lucky to get a job for half of what you were getting paid previously. This is not fair to the employee either. The company would have to compensate you for the three years plus COLA, plus typical raises and bonuses that you got for three years and then continue to pay you at half that rate plus COLA, raises and bonuses for the remainder of your professional career. Or, perhaps they could take the quick way out and just offer you a one time cash settlement. $2 million ought to be reasonable for a typical $100,000 job.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.