I thought the courts ruled that non-compete clauses were not legal. Anyway, they should be restricted if not illegal and businesses should need to show that the knowledge they intend to protect is the result of their investment and not just the fact that they employed the person with the knowledge. If I come up with an idea while working for company x that is not related to any investment that company x made then the idea should belong to me and not to company x. If I start my own company or take a job with company y, as long as I don't use any knowledge that was funded by company x I should be allowed to compete against company y. Yes, stealing and using company secrets or proprietary processes is illegal but working for a competitor should not be legal. It can't be stopped, people working for Boeing take jobs at Lockheed all the time. Sometimes the government actually drives this migration by changing contractors for major operations. No way the new contractor can do the work without hiring the outgoing incumbent contractor's staff. The changing badges to a new company but doing the same job is a routine for many aerospace workers. Often the IP belongs to the people its creation was funded with public dollars. It is criminal how often IP developed with public dollars is protected from dissemination by bureaucracy to the benefit of a particular company but to the detriment of society. I know that some data I want was developed with government dollars but I have to file a FOIA request to get it because of corporate/government politics. I can't fund a FOIA request so I have to recreate the development of something that I should be able to get for free.

Sorry for going off topic.

TEK T E Knowles (Knowledge)