IBM Sues Apple Over Chip Designer

Apple hired IBM’s "top expert in Power architecture and technology." IBM liked that idea so much that they decided to sue Apple.

Mark Papermaster, who served as IBM's vice president of microprocessor technology development, is set to join Apple within the next couple weeks to begin working closely with chief executive Steve Jobs. According to a report by Tom Krazit of CNet News, IBM's complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York indicates that IBM believes this is "an attempt to expand Apple's presence in the markets for servers and chips for handheld devices."

Very misleading title suggesting that IBM wants to sue Apple for expanding their business. Please add:

"IBM has issued a statement saying "Mr. Papermaster's employment by Apple is a violation of his agreement with IBM against working for a competitor should he leave IBM. We will vigorously pursue this case in court.""

These "employment restraint" things rarely hold up legally from what I hear. Signed or not.

If the above is true he is a dope for signing that contract...with his credentials any company he works for will be a competitor to IBM.

This, IIRC, is why so many of them fail. The courts don't believe in preventing one from making a living.

If you deliver milk for a living, and you go to another company, it's probably going to be to deliver milk.

Simplistic, but explanatory

Oh, I must add I am not a Lawyer, have never played one on TV, and did not sleep at a Holiday Inn last night.

Noncompete contracts should be illegal. It is one thing to prosecute someone for divulging trade secrets, but being able to sue a former employee simply because he works for someone else is anti-competitive and quite frankly, bullshit. What are you supposed to do, work for that company the rest of your life?

These usually have a time limit clause on it, like 1 year. To be frank, if they want to execute that clause there should be a cost associated with it which should be 1 year worth of salary paid to said ex-employee so that he can go vacationing

Originally Posted by poopy

Noncompete contracts should be illegal. It is one thing to prosecute someone for divulging trade secrets, but being able to sue a former employee simply because he works for someone else is anti-competitive and quite frankly, bullshit. What are you supposed to do, work for that company the rest of your life?

not to mention if they decide to shitcan you or let you go. What're you supposed to do? Work at McDonald's until the contract is up?

Honestly, if they're going to do that, they should keep paying the person as if they were still employed there after they leave. I mean, if you're not going to let them earn a living, you should continue to give them one, or give them one hell of a severance package like they already do for all the stupid CEOs who run companies straight into the ground.

Originally Posted by TechLarry

If you deliver milk for a living, and you go to another company, it's probably going to be to deliver milk.

However, this guy doesn't deliver milk...he would be equivalent to the guy who figured out how to get the cows to give more milk and then goes to a competitor to work for them. Not anybody can do what he does. He has very specific and possibly sensitive knowledge. Quite a bit is covered under "trade secret" which is never released to the public unless it has to be defended which means it is no longer a "trade secret".

Every sensitive position has this clauses.
Its to protect the former company from losing valuable information. Anything that you accomplish on IBMs time belongs to IBM and they do NOT want you sharing that information with other people.

imho if he signed a contract he should stick to it. Noncompetition clauses typically are long and complicated though so its quite possible that there's some ambiguity and he may believe he's ok and IBM could see things in a different way. Afteral, he didn't have to sign the contract to start with and was undoubtedly in a better position because he signed the contract, after receiving that benefit, blatantly disregarding the contract (which I'd guess probably hasn't happened) would essentially be theft.

"RESTRAINT OF TRADE" laws need to go the way of The Flat Earth Society.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-compete_clause

That is why you don't sign that shit. I mean, what are they gonna do, fire you? Either way, if he goes to work for Apple in California, Apple can't be sued. At least in that state.

Originally Posted by BallerX

That is why you don't sign that shit. I mean, what are they gonna do, fire you? Either way, if he goes to work for Apple in California, Apple can't be sued. At least in that state.

Some companies consider it part of the application process, if you don't sign it, you dont get the job..

Originally Posted by Ockie

Some companies consider it part of the application process, if you don't sign it, you dont get the job..

Oh well, they can settle for second best of they like. Mean while, they can piss off while I make there competitor an ass load of money.

My point being, if no one signed them they wouldn't exist.

Originally Posted by BallerX

Oh well, they can settle for second best of they like. Mean while, they can piss off while I make there competitor an ass load of money.

My point being, if no one signed them they wouldn't exist.

And if no one was greedy then communism would work. Point is, there's always going to be someone who will buck the system to get ahead. If a bunch of people refused to sign them, you know that some other guy would jump up and say "hell, I'll sign anything, give me the job!"

These no-compete clauses have no real solution. On one hand, it's bullshit that a company can prevent you from working wherever you want, especially when they have no legal responsibility to employ you. On the other hand, though, these clauses apply to jobs where the employee is in close contact with very sensitive information. You don't get one of these contracts for being a milkman or a janitor or a burger flipper. You get it for working with secretive research and development information. And remember: discoveries that are made by a researcher at a company generally are legally owned by the company, not the researcher. So say you're working at IBM and you discover a new formula for wafer photoresist or something--that information does not belong to you and you cannot just run off to, say, intel and use it in their fabs. It's a big legal mess.