Originally Posted by
FlashBazbo
oldbobcat, I'm that lawyer you're telling them to consult. I.P. assignment provisions of employment agreements ARE enforceable in every jurisdiction of which I'm aware -- certainly in the majority of jurisdictions, even outside the U.S. This is especially true if the invention/innovation was made within the same industry category. They are very rarely a problem, though. People who are smart enough to invent something are generally smart enough to have either (1) hired a lawyer who asks the right questions, or (2) read and understood their employment agreement. Companies can't afford not to enforce them and they will pursue the perp until they gain public satisfaction. I.P. is their life blood and they can't allow the appearance of letting employees walk off with it.
Non-competes, on the other hand, are hard to enforce. Won't often happen. But Specialized isn't going after them under a non-compete clause. I think you're confusing this with a non-compete case.
If Choi and Forsman wanted to do their own thing, they should have been smart enough to create a time gap and DOCUMENT that their back-of-napkin sketches were made after they left. It's a simple I.Q. test. Between the documentary evidence and the perps' public pronouncements, they are done. (Nightmare clients.)
Side issue . . . do you really want to buy a bike frame from guys so inattentive to basic details? I'm no Specialized fan (much the contrary after my Tarmac experience), but these guys would have been better served to wave a white flag and give Specialized their royalty. It would have been cheaper than legal fees.
Spoken like a true lawyer my friend. Lawyers are paid to keep this BS going as long as possible. That being said, I agree with you, but that isn't the issue. The real issue is control AFTER departure from the company. Which unless there is direct contract which keeps their employees IP even property created after the departure of the company, the real issue is how long can you control the fate of another human being. Selling a company and entering non-compete contract is one thing and should easily be enforced. Utilizing a Non-compete clause for a product that they don't compete against is simply legal trickery and it is the exact reason people get confused.
Here is the deal, despite the fact that even though laws are supposed to be easily understood and not having to be translated into layman's terms, most contracts and laws are purposely built to be so confusing that nobody can figure them out. The problem is Specialized doesn't even know what they are sueing for. They only know WHY, and that is to disarm a possible upstart company. They had to utilize a TEAM of lawyers and resubmit the lawsuit in order for it to even be considered. (If you want to talk about lacking details, Specialized doesn't even know what is in their own contracts - that s why they NEED their precious lawyers.)
Specialized has no product AVAILABLE right now that competes with the Volagi. On top of that the Patent was awarded to Volagi, not Specialized. If specialized was indeed sitting on this technology with no patent behind it in their name and somebody else came along and released it first with a patent. It doesn't matter what is in their Non compete clause, because they aren't competing. They simply beat Specialized to it.
Why is it that ONLY the companies that make their employees sign these contracts are ever in the right? For some reason just because you signed a non-compete clause during your employment and most likely a short time afterwards that there is not leg for the severed employee to stand on? Where does Specialized have it documented that they invented this IP and that it happened long before Volagi earned a credible patent? Why is it that only Volagi has to prove their innocence. Criminal/Business/Traffic laws dictates that a defendant is considered innocent until proven guilty. They set it up that the only people that have to do any real proof showing are the defendants.
Essentially what i am getting at is, the only reason they are doing this is to BULLY their way out of competitors. You can break out all of the legal BS available (which is A LOT) but it doesn't make it correct. Not even on the smallest of scales. Specialized has not invented anything useful but a large legal team and zerts inserts. The rest is all stolen from other, real engineers who will never be heard of because of shady business practices. It took an entire team to be the Chicago Bulls, but Jordan still got his recognition. Specialized gives NOBODY any recognition, so when people leave the company, they get scared. This is a pretty blatant act of fear on Specialized' part.