The ramp-up to legislatively limit noncompetes continues: there are currently 24 states with 65 noncompete bills so far this year, and 4 more are pending in Congress.
No one ever points to North Dakota’s or Oklahoma’s ban on noncompete as producing a thriving tech sector, because they haven’t. Yet, somehow think that the same ban in California is why we have Silicon Valley. This assumption is wrong for multiple reasons. Worse, it leads to poor policy.
Misconceptions about noncompetes abound. And, as noncompete agreements are increasingly in the cross-hairs of the media and legislators, it has become increasingly clear that some of the most vocal de...
It turns out that global climate change is caused by a decrease in the number of pirates. Don’t believe it? See the chart to the right. This is an example of mistaking correlation for causati...
Having looked back over the last couple of years, I realized that I have failed to provide enough updates on issues and cases making trade secrets | noncompete news. So, I am going to try to resume...
It seems that, lately, each installment of Trade Secret | Noncompete Issues and Cases in the News could be called, “What I read over my vacation.” As was inevitably the case, given the time betwee...
This post provides a summary of noncompete and trade secret issues and cases that have arisen in the past month or so, but that I have not already addressed in recent posts. In addition to my summary,...
This post relates to the procedural practice of law (litigation, really). Although not specific to "Unfair Competition," it is particularly relevant to these issues, given the frequent comparison of C...
This year, we have seen several dramatic changes to noncompete laws around the country. The following are some of the highlights: California: Many people thought noncompetes were DOA with the Cal...
While everyone else gets their information by googling it, how does Google get its information? Well, according to Pay Pal, it steals it. Just two days ago (Friday, May 27, 2011 - for those reading...
The BRR 50 State Noncompete Chart has been updated today (April 12, 2011) to reflect an update to South Carolina’s handling of overly broad restrictions. Specifically, the South Carolina Supreme Co...
The 50 state survey of noncompete laws has been updated, primarily to reflect the change in Georgia law. It is available for download here. Please note that the chart will be periodically updated...
In October 2009, Computerworld published an article of mine entitled, "No-poach agreements: A new generation of restriction." The article discussed a no-poach agreement used by several large high tech...
Well, I guess it's not such a bad thing that my last post was about the HP/Oracle/Hurd dispute, as there's more to report. It's settled. No surprise there; most of these cases do settle - and settl...
Bad pun aside, Hewlett-Packard has sued its former CEO, Mark Hurd, who left HP last month and reportedly just joined Oracle as its new co-president. (A copy of the complaint if available here.) No...