The NDA is a generally a separate contract from your consulting
contract, so you can't throw the NDA away just because the consulting
contract is broken.

Read through the NDA and answer the following questions:

What, specifically, does it prevent you from disclosing?

For how long does it prevent you from doing this?  (usually this is
based on a fixed time or a fixed time after the contract has ended, or
both, whichever is longer.)

Those are the two main aspects of the agreement.  Regardless of
anything else, if you break them then you are in breach of contract.

Note that NDAs usually cover things like:
Inventions
Novel ideas
Business process/plans/etc
Trade secrets
etc.

Yours is going to be fairly specific on what exactly it covers.

If the project truly contains no new inventions, novel ideas,
ideas/process/plans specific to his business, or trade secrets then it
is likely that you would not be in breach of contract if you went
ahead.  If you have good, dated, documentation that shows you did this
project before, then you may have a much more reasonable case for
moving forward.

That won't, however, prevent him from suing you.  Even if you are
certain to win, you'll likely lose a lot of time, money, and sanity if
he decides to do that.

Of course, consult a lawyer.  The piclist is not a substitute for
contract law advice.

-Adam

On 6/15/07, Jinx <joecolquitt@clear.net.nz> wrote:
> I signed an NDA and did some work for a client. The client has
> backed out of the project, and I feel I'd like to have a go at
> marketing it myself. The client says I can't do that because I've
> signed an NDA. Normally I'd go along with that except -
>
> - the product is not novel and can be found in other markets, eg
> quite easily with Google. Hardly a secret. Anyone else who had
> not signed an NDA would therefore be quite at liberty to make
> these
>
> - I'd already independently invented and built one for myself 10
> years ago (but never went ahead and commercialised it), so I'm
> not ignorant of its existence. Neither are all the people who knew
> about mine before this client came along
>
> The NDA was the usual thing ; don't disclose to 3rd parties etc,
> nothing special
>
> What do you think ? Leg to stand on ?
>
> --
> http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
> View/change your membership options at
> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist
>


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