Law Commons^™

The Adr Loophole To Restrictive Non-Compete Agreements, Jad Itani

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

This Comment considers a key question: do employers have a strategy to protect themselves if these restrictive states are restricting corporations from protecting their self-developed trade secrets? In doing so, Part II will discuss an approach that may allow employers to potentially circumvent the restrictive states. This can be achieved by requiring an employee to undergo private arbitration in a dispute with an employer—a strategy that has gained validity in light of the United States Supreme Court’s holding that upholds arbitration clauses even where significant public policy concerns exist. Specifically, an employer in a restrictive state could potentially enforce an …

“An Ingenious Man Enabled By Contract”: Entrepreneurship And The Rise Of Contract, Catherine Fisk

Catherine Fisk

A legal ideology emerged in the 1870s that celebrated contract as the body of law with the particular purpose of facilitating the formation of productive exchanges that would enrich the parties to the contract and, therefore, society as a whole. Across the spectrum of intellectual property, courts used the legal fiction of implied contract, and a version of it particularly emphasizing liberty of contract, to shift control of workplace knowledge from skilled employees to firms while suggesting that the emergence of hierarchical control and loss of entrepreneurial opportunity for creative workers was consistent with the free labor ideology that dominated …

Debating Employee Non-Competes And Trade Secrets, Sharon Sandeen, Elizabeth A. Rowe

Faculty Scholarship

Recently, a cacophony of concerns have been raised about the propriety of noncompetition agreements (NCAs) entered into between employers and employees, fueled by media reports of agreements which attempt to restrain low-wage and low-skilled workers, such as sandwich makers and dog walkers. In the lead-up to the passage of the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act of2016 (DTSA), public policy arguments in favor of employee mobility were strongly advocated by those representing the "California view" on the enforceability of NCAs, leading to a special provision of the DTSA that limits injunctive relief with respect to employee NCAs. Through our lens as …

The Law Of The Platform, Orly Lobel

Faculty Scholarship

New digital platform companies are turning everything into an available resource: services, products, spaces, connections, and knowledge, all of which would otherwise be collecting dust. Unsurprisingly then, the platform economy defies conventional regulatory theory. Millions of people are becoming part-time entrepreneurs, disrupting established business models and entrenched market interests, challenging regulated industries, and turning ideas about consumption, work, risk, and ownership on their head. Paradoxically, as the digital platform economy becomes more established, we are also at an all-time high in regulatory permitting, licensing, and protection. The battle over law in the platform is therefore both conceptual and highly practical. …

Covenants Not To Compete, John Dwight Ingram

Akron Law Review

This article will discuss the enforceability of covenants not to compete when they are used in commercial business settings. There will be no discussion of the forms of relief available if a court determines that a covenant is enforceable. Also omitted from this article are noncompetition agreements which accompany the sale of a business or dissolution of a partnership. Finally, a discussion concerning covenants not to compete between professionals (attorneys, physicians, etc.) will not be a part of this current article.

In most states today, courts will enforce a covenant not to compete if the covenant is found to be …

Leaky Covenants-Not-To-Compete As The Legal Infrastructure For Innovation, Robert W. Gomulkiewicz

Articles

The flow of information that naturally occurs when employees change firms plays a vital role in spurring innovation. Numerous law review articles have explored how covenants-not-to-compete (“non-competes”) can impede this important information flow. In 1999 Professor Ronald Gilson published an influential article concluding that California’s ban on non-competes led to the rise of California’s Silicon Valley and the comparative decline of Massachusetts’ high technology corridor known as Route 128. Despite the scholarly praise for California’s approach, most states enforce non-competes that are reasonable.

That may change, however, because many states are re-evaluating their non-compete laws to avoid Gilson’s cautionary tale …

When Trade Secrets Become Shackles: Fairness And The Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine, Elizabeth Rowe

Elizabeth A Rowe

Critics of the inevitable disclosure doctrine decry the inconsistency with which courts rule on these cases, and the difficulty in predicting case outcomes. They contend that courts are left to "grapple with a decidedly ... nebulous standard of 'inevitability."' Further, they claim the doctrine undermines the employee's fundamental right to move freely and pursue his or her livelihood. Ultimately, both the problem and solution here are about fairness: fairness in the employer-employee relationship, fairness in the application of the law, and fairness in providing protection from unfair competition between competing employers. The crux of the opposition to the doctrine, in …

Whose Social Network Account: A Trade Secret Approach To Allocating Rights, Zoe Argento

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Who has the superior right to a social network account? This is the question in a growing number of disputes between employers and workers over social network accounts. The problem has no clear legal precedent. Although the disputes implicate rights under trademark, copyright, and privacy law, these legal paradigms fail to address the core issue. At base, disputes over social network accounts are disputes over the right to access the people, sometimes numbering in the tens of thousands, who follow an account. This Article evaluates the problem from the perspective of the public interest in social network use, particularly the …

Employment Law—The Elusive Enforceability Of Employment Covenants Not To Compete In Arkansas, Victoria J. Malony

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

Generally speaking, a covenant not to compete , or noncompete agreement, is a promise in an employment contract not to engage in the same type of business for a stated time in the same market as the employer. When these agreements are found by courts to be unenforceable, it leaves employers vulnerable to competitors. On the other hand, when they are enforced, employees may be unable to find work in the industry in which they are most experienced.

Because of the conflicts inherent in covenants not to compete, many courts have struggled to create a rule that can be fairly …

“An Ingenious Man Enabled By Contract”: Entrepreneurship And The Rise Of Contract, Catherine Fisk

Faculty Scholarship

A legal ideology emerged in the 1870s that celebrated contract as the body of law with the particular purpose of facilitating the formation of productive exchanges that would enrich the parties to the contract and, therefore, society as a whole. Across the spectrum of intellectual property, courts used the legal fiction of implied contract, and a version of it particularly emphasizing liberty of contract, to shift control of workplace knowledge from skilled employees to firms while suggesting that the emergence of hierarchical control and loss of entrepreneurial opportunity for creative workers was consistent with the free labor ideology that dominated …

When Trade Secrets Become Shackles: Fairness And The Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine, Elizabeth A. Rowe

UF Law Faculty Publications

Critics of the inevitable disclosure doctrine decry the inconsistency with which courts rule on these cases, and the difficulty in predicting case outcomes. They contend that courts are left to "grapple with a decidedly ... nebulous standard of 'inevitability."' Further, they claim the doctrine undermines the employee's fundamental right to move freely and pursue his or her livelihood.

Ultimately, both the problem and solution here are about fairness: fairness in the employer-employee relationship, fairness in the application of the law, and fairness in providing protection from unfair competition between competing employers. The crux of the opposition to the doctrine, in …

Compensating Manufacturers Submitting Health And Safety Data To Support Product Registrations After Ruckelshaus V. Monsanto, Eric E. Boyd

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Involuntary Servitude: The Current Enforcement Of Employee Covenants Not To Compete – A Proposal For Reform, Phillip J. Closius, Henry M. Schaffer

All Faculty Scholarship

A covenant not to compete is a contractual restriction upon an individual's ability to compete with another person or entity following the termination of some transaction or relationship between the two. Because of the increasing emphasis in the American economy on technically skilled employees and service oriented businesses, the covenant not to compete has become a standard addition to employment contracts. Moreover, the number of litigated and reported cases may represent only a small percentage of the actual number of employment restrictions currently in force. Regardless of their validity and enforceability, covenants not to compete chill the free movement of …