Confidentiality and Noncompete Agreement 2.5 years into employement 5

[uGlay]

so i was just handed (actually the entire department) a non-compete agreement. everyone promptly signed it with no questions however my role in the firm is that of a mechanical design and i am constantly creating solutions for mechanical problems which require creative thinking and design.

i would have no problem with it except for the fact that a few weeks ago i was in talks of patenting one of the products which i have worked on for over a year.

so basically i was in talks of including my name in the patent of such product (since i pretty much came up with the solution) I as well as project managers and engineers thought it would be fair for my name to be on the document.

now ive been handed this paper, to everyone it was like 'whatever' because everyone else is doing electrical design which there aint much to it just a bunch of lines in cad (ok ok im exaggerating) but everyone signed it. and im the only one who hasnt signed it.

anyways, sorry for my post if it is a bit unorganized but i am a bit shaken right now..

what would you do fellow Eng-r's. I am torn. they are saying i either sign it or im done for in this company.

basically the doc starts with "Whereas employee desires to become or remain employed..."


p.s. ive signed many NDA's with no issues, but this case is different because i was in talks of furthering a patent. Its offensive.

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[patprimmer]

FACS

I agree with a lot of what you say even if I disagree with the attitude behind it.

Where I strongly disagree is with your giving legal advice based on the law where you live when there is not one word I can find that gives a clue as to where the OP lives or what laws or jurisdiction applies.

I actually find it quite arrogant to just presume your laws apply equally across the entire world.

Regards
Pat
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[FACS]

patprimer,
I agree, laws vary from state to let; applications of the same laws vary from stste to state, and certaintly laws vary from country to country. While I didn'T intend to actually give legal advice, I woukd understand how one would think I did. I know California courts tend to favor the employers on non-competes. In Illinois, a friend of mine directly violated his non-compete, and ended up paying $3000 in settlement.

I'm not a lawyer so my ability to dispense legal advise is zero, as is most everyone else on this site. That shoild be obvious to anyone reading this. However we do study business law in graduate school. We must so that we can be protected from making mistakes. Just as we follow laws to protect others in society, we must know them to follow them, and we may even remind others so that they may follow correctly.

Taken all that aside, if one considers the consequences of his actions, he should not be surprised of those consequences.

I see no difference in what I stated in my other posts, than the advise of others: to seek legal advise; that the OP was fired illegally; that the OP should file a lawsuit; when others state what they know of patent laws....this is not actually legal advise per say, this is only areas of the law that we know about (because we do know things) that the OP should consider.

You do make a good point, and we all sholud consider your words. Things are not necessiarily the same where we live, and we never did find out where the OP is.

Even without considering any legal aspects of the law, what do we suppose would have happened if the OP would have signed the agreement along with all those other insignificant, non contributing electrical engineers? I suppose the "grey area" you mentioned in one of your first posts in this thread is really a short version on what I feel is true.

Charlie

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[jmw]

Here is an interesting article at BNET about the effect of non-compete agreements......Want Your Innovators to Leave? Make Them Sign a Non-Compete

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com