On April 29, the Massachusetts Legislature’s Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development favorably reported out a bill (available here) very close to Governor Patrick’s proposed adoption of...
As you likely have seen (here for example), the Patrick Administration has spent a great deal of time putting together comprehensive proposed legislation designed to promote growth and opportunity in...
This past week, the Boston Bar Association held its 14th annual Intellectual Property Year in Review. I covered trade secrets (including related restrictive covenants). Below is a summary of those dev...
I have at least had a chance to read the December 27, 2012 decision of the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington in Amazon.com v. Powers, granting in part and denying in...
Once again, this installment of “Trade Secret | Noncompete Issues and Cases in the News” is my vacation readings update. There is again a lot here! Enjoy… Federal/Antitrust: In October 2009,...
Like a similar post last month, 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 p...
Earlier today (September 15), the Massachusetts legislature’s Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development took testimony on the pending bills to reform Massachusetts noncompete law: two to...
The Joint Committee on Labor & Workforce Development has officially announced that it will be conducting a hearing on, among other things, the Massachusetts noncompete bill on September 15. The he...
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...
Hairdressers have been held out as a prime example why noncompete reform is required in Massachusetts. Whenever the hairdressers are rolled out, however, those opposed to reform contend that courts ...
The bill in Massachusetts to codify, clarify, and modernize Massachusetts law relative to employee noncompetition agreements was re-filed today, with several significant changes from the prior version...
We spend lots of time on this blog discussing trade secret protection. To give some context, I thought it might be helpful to have a few statistics: Trade secret and related noncompete cases have m...
For those interested in the status of and plans for the Massachusetts noncompete bill or Massachusetts noncompete law more generally, there are two up-coming discussions you may wish to attend. The...
When an employee is bound by a noncompetition agreement, it is rare for the noncompete to be the exclusive restriction on the employee's post-employment conduct. Rather, noncompetition agreements are...
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...