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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.