Been in the same position myself as management employee, employer and
consultant.

Investors are increasingly insisting that employers get agreements like this
from present engineers and new hires. I feel a fair agreement has the
following clauses:

1.Everything invented or worked on during business hours using the firm's
property belongs to them unless a)You can prove you invented it prior to
employement or b)it is already known.

2.They give you credit for and pay for any actions needed to stake their
claim or enforce their claims against others. (If you really invented it and
don't get credit as an inventor on a patent, that is grounds for
invalidating a patent, but you will have to assign it to them.)

3.You won't tell anyone about it during employement or for a period of time
after employment ends nor take anything in any written form. (What's in your
head is yours.)

4.They will hold you harmless including reasonable attorney fees for any
action resulting from your employement.

However, a firm that wants to retain scarce, valuable, technical talent will
also arrange to compensate technical contributors in product profit shares,
etc. which may be tied to continued voluntary employment.

Note that there is no mention of competitors -- Non compete agreements are
purchases, normally at 6 figure rates, and for limited times (up to two
years) from departing employees who are talented enough to do damage. If you
are not valuable enough to cause damage, your firm should act like it and
put a price on it.

(I think the state of California has some legislation or rules that
interpret employment contracts more on the side of the employee. Does anyone
have any info - Web links about this?)

Tom


>