zlacker

>>pg_123+(OP)
Quant firms at least are one of the few places where noncompetes can make sense. It's an extremely IP sensitive industry with stupendously high pay where the employee is going to someone probably competing very directly with you, for the same/similar opportunities. Actual code + NDAs banning literal reimplementations of stuff aren't that valuable, the knowledge and ideas will stay in the head of the employees.

The two main issues I have with them are that firms tend to give them to just about everybody (instead of just to folks working very directly with real IP), and they only pay base salary, not something closer to actual total compensation (often multiples of the base pay).

Having said that, the quant firm is relatively unimportant and not a good reason to prevent a total noncompete law. It's probably better to just ban them then try and make allowances that aren't full of loopholes.

>>vgathe+Cg
> Quant firms at least are one of the few places where noncompetes can make sense. It's an extremely IP sensitive industry with stupendously high pay where the employee is going to someone probably competing very directly with you, for the same/similar opportunities.

Cry me a river. If knowledge of some particular employees worth so much to the quant firms, then they should pay them not to leave accordingly.

>>caskst+w61
Knowledge of a secret does not imply that you provide value.

>>hamand+0f1
Are you speaking towards the employee or towards the quant firm? If the employee has no standing to claim value, then why does the underlying business get to?

>>akira2+eQ1
Because they own the trade secret. For example, they have the legal right to license a trade secret; an employee does not. It's about legal ownership of intellectual property.

As a corollary, you may read a patent and now have the knowledge of a product. But you don't have the same legal right to create and sell that product. That right is protected by the patent owner.

>>bumby+lZ1
Of course, that line of thinking involves the inevitable follow up: when is something a “copy” vs a “genuine invention”. If company has a patent on making widget A, how different does a previous employee who leaves and makes widget B have to be before it’s not considered a violation?

I am no expert here but my understanding is that the case law around this is much more well trodden in patent land than it is for noncompetes

>>SOLAR_+n32
You're right, but there are some nuances that I would expect a good law to address. My presumption is that trade secrets would have to be covered by confidentiality agreements, which are distinct from noncompetes. The threshold for infringement of intellectual property is a "preponderance of evidence"; i.e., it's "more likely than not" or "greater than 50%" so it's not a terribly high threshold to prove compared to other sorts of law.

If it's truly patented (different from a trade secret), you can't produce it, even if your invention is slightly different. For example, if I hold a patent on a "car" and you make a "car with a radio," you still can't produce it because it infringes on my patent. You can't make your product without covering the totality of my claim. That's why people try to make patent claims as broad as possible.