A123 Sues Apple For Poaching Employees 196
An anonymous reader writes "Electric-car battery maker A123 Systems is suing Apple in federal court for allegedly poaching five employees to help it develop a competing battery business. The suit accuses the workers, including A123's former chief technology officer, of breaking noncompete and nonsolicit agreements. "It appears that Apple, with the assistance of defendant Ijaz, is systematically hiring away A123’s high-tech PhD and engineering employees, thereby effectively shutting down various projects/programs at A123," according to the lawsuit. The news adds some credibility to rumors that Apple is getting into the automotive market. "
First people complain about not poaching (Score:2, Insightful)
Now they complain when they do poach.
Come on.
Re:First people complain about not poaching (Score:5, Insightful)
And the lawyers win.
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And the lawyers win.
Disagree. Why does everyone forget the golden rule?
He who has the Gold makes the Rules.
Therefore, Bankers always win. Lawyers are hired help.
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First people complain about not poaching
Now they complain when they do poach.
That's completely out of context. They're two completely different matters, and one is a matter of (largely) Federal law, the other of State law.
Anti-poaching agreements like the one Apple had with other Silicon Valley companies, and other anti-poaching agreements between companies violate Federal antitrust laws, because they are essentially commercial agreements to not compete. Some States have laws similar to the Federal laws in that regard.
Non-disclosure and non-compete agreements between company a
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Whenever something bad happens, there's usually a lawyer close by. You do the math.
You mean smart people almost always consult experts?
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Whenever something bad happens, there's usually a lawyer close by. You do the math.
Yeah, all wars are started by lawyers for example...
Seriously, an Apple car? (Score:5, Funny)
I can see it now - It comes in only white and silver, the hood doesn't open, tires cost twice as much as non-Apple tires, you have to buy your gas only from Apple gas stations and the windshield-wiper fluid is made from the tears of children. On the plus side, the exhaust smells like a combination of vanilla and smug.
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I think your complaint is invalid. The simile to Apple's current market strategy is strong and compelling:
Today Apple builds the handheld computer-pod, offers an app store including support for in-app purchases, and takes a huge cut of all proceeds.
Tomorrow Apple builds a car, offers an app store including a per-mile insurance app which draws funds from your App Store balance, and takes a huge cut of all the proceeds.
That's perfectly cromulent.
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(...), you have to buy your gas only from Apple gas stations (...) On the plus side, the exhaust smells like a combination of vanilla and smug.
It's more like it will be an electric car---and the plug will only be compatible with Apple charging station outlets---so, there will be no exhaust, and therefore no "plus side".
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It's funny to joke about, but I think the concept of them only allowing it to be serviced at Apple-certified garages would be quite high. They'd probably allow the tires and the like to be done elsewhere, but I have little doubt that they'd restrict access to any internals. And would charge a fortune for trivial tasks.
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It's actually quite likely that such a thing could happen with a significant technology shift. In fact, since tires are this weird mish-mash of SAE and SI units, switching to an entirely SI-unit wheel and tire could be a way to enforce a hard-break between the tires for conventional operator-driven internal combustion vehicles and autonomous electric vehicles.
I also f
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I think you're mixing some things up. The EV1's tires were standard size (P175/65R14) and only 50 PSI. They were low rolling resistance but nothing spectacular by modern standards. I certainly hope to see big advances in tires in the coming decades (we really need tires that can adapt to the circumstances, changing their pressure and thread area / type in contact with the ground area depending on conditions and driver demands), but there's no radical departures I'm aware of coming in the immediate future.
Ye
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I can't think of a single EV today that is "harder to open". But as stated I can easily envision Apple doing that. I can't envision any of the current manufacturers doing that.
Teslas are harder to open. The only thing you have access to is the windshield washer fluid. True, electric engines need less maintainance but you still have brake fluid, coolant, A/C, etc... While I guess it is still possible to service a Tesla yourself, it is clearly discouraged.
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It's been a long, long time since I have seen an engine with anything other than self-adjusting hydraulic valve lifters, too.
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Pretty much every car uses fuel injection now, because it is vastly superior in every meaningful way. Carburetors persisted for a while in motorcycle engines, but fuel injection is taking over that market too.
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The average person never did their own car work.
The average shade tree wrench has a $12 OBDII scanner and can swap parts better then most tech school grads. It has gotten ridiculously easy, though those guys often waste money just chasing codes and not understanding (tech school grads I mean).
The newest cars have mode things deliberately difficult. Their systems will all be hacked before they are out of warranty. Just don't look for the codes in cheap commercial scanners.
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It's funny to joke about, but I think the concept of them only allowing it to be serviced at Apple-certified garages would be quite high
Pretty much all modern cars work that way already. To do any real work inside the car, you need access to the electronic system which is only accessible through special machines controlled by the manufacturer. The amount of work that independent mechanics can accomplish without becoming manufacturer-certified is pretty slim.
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Don't forget that you'll need iTunes to load anything in the trunk, which will lose the contents any time there is an update.
Tires (Score:2)
Actually it use to be that lots of car manufacturers had odd tire sizes so you either ponied up the $$$$$$ for the same tires or you bought a whole wheel/tire set brand new and threw away the oem set snd sasved $$$$$$ in the long run.
I got Mini wheels on my Yaris but needed to get two front tires. They were 50$ more than other brand name tires for a 175 65 r15
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Re:Seriously, an Apple car? (Score:5, Funny)
I can see it now:
Apple announces the Apple Car. It only comes in three styles (coupe, sedan, and light SUV), three colors each. It has no steering wheel, no pedals, and no user-maintainable parts. They are shiny, closed systems, are well-marketed, and work well, with some quirks here and there.
Naturally, serious gearheads, tinkers, and the automotive industry chuckle at Apple's folly, as they know nothing about what cars are supposed to be.
Naturally, it turns out that Apple knows a good deal about what the typical person would actually like in a car, and they sell millions of 'em.
Naturally, this leads to gearheads clawing their eyes out with rage at the sheer stupidity and worthlessness of the ordinary driver. Quirks are held up as fatal flaws, a sign that Apple exists solely because of slick commercials and glitzy designs.
Naturally, this leads to the auto industry spending the next five to seven years trying to play catch-up to Apple. Each automaker ends up changing pretty much their entire fleet to match the Apple Car's functionality and style.
Naturally, the auto industry eventually catches up to Apple Cars--and eclipses them, in some ways.
Naturally, the gearheads all roll their eyes at the morons who are still buying and driving Apple Cars, when the cars made by the industry are so clearly superior.
Rumors begin to circulate that Apple is designing a spacecraft.
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Put down the bong and step away with your hands in the air.
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You left out that when it breaks it is your fault. You were driving it wrong.
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I can see it now - It comes in only white and silver, the hood doesn't open
Oh, the hood opens... to reveal another hood that doesn't. Or more accurately, it would feature a flat metallic mass that you can't really do anything with (like a "black box"). Which is pretty much how modern cars work where it's expected the user will not do any maintenance beyond changing the oil and inflating the tires.
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I figure a Fan Boy Response will be such....
While I don't disagree with much of what you say, the iCar would still need to be fueled by stations that are licensed by Apple.
Having said that: while the other cars break down and the manufacturers say "too bad, just get a new one", the iCar will just keep chugging away at its less-then-Formula-I pace, and may even get an upgrade.
Credibility to rumors? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Credibility to rumors? (Score:4, Informative)
Making a battery for a car is way different from making a battery for a portable device. They have to have a completely different set of tolerances, and energy density in a car has to be far greater in a car than in a portable device. Apple is not very knowledgeable of innovative when it comes to battery technologies. When it comes their advances in battery longevity, this is almost exclusively done in software. Apple doesn't really invent hardware components. They're more like lego fans who arrange existing hardware in to their own configurations.
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Making a battery for a car is way different from making a battery for a portable device.
yes, it's different, but
They have to have a completely different set of tolerances,
Not really. Both have to be protected from intense shock, and ongoing vibration. See, people put their cellphone in their car...
and energy density in a car has to be far greater in a car than in a portable device.
Wrong again. Energy density is of critical importance in both applications. The chief difference is in charge/discharge rates, and the chief difference there is in electrode design.
Apple doesn't really invent hardware components. They're more like lego fans who arrange existing hardware in to their own configurations.
Except they do, they worked on their own ARM chip at one time for example.
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the chief difference is how important the # of life cycles you can get is. With smaller batteries it's only slightly important, with electric car batteries it's a huge deal .
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the chief difference is how important the # of life cycles you can get is. With smaller batteries it's only slightly important, with electric car batteries it's a huge deal .
It's a huge deal with any kind of battery. It's a huge deal with cellphone batteries because people run them down all the time, and many of them are now non-replaceable.
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What kind of idiot would buy a cell phone with a non-replaceable battery? That would be even more stupid than if it had a proprietary data-cable port. Nobody in their right mind would but such a crippled device.
Re:Credibility to rumors? (Score:5, Informative)
No, the GP is correct. The requirements for vehicles are radically different for portable electronics, and this leads to very different design choices. Tell me when was the last time you saw an iPod with an air conditioner just to cool its battery pack (which sometimes runs even when the iPod isn't in use), or a heater for cold weather charging? When was the last time you saw a iPhone with a battery that was warrantied for as much as a decade? When was the last time you saw an iPad that was rated by the manufacturer to have no problems after sitting out every day every winter in temperatures of -20C, summer temperatures of +40C with no shade, etc? When was the last time you saw any sort of portable electronics that broke its batteries up into separately sealed canisters that prevent fire from propagating from one to the next, or that can withstand a highway-speed collision? Portable electronics generally don't even do any charge balancing, let alone the sort of "be able to handle the loss of entire clusters of batteries" sort of management that vehicle packs have to be able to do (eg, rather than single cell or a couple-cells-in-series like consumer electronics, the Roadster has 6831 cells clustered into "bricks" of 69 cells in parallel to minimize the effects of individual failures, 9 bricks series per sheet, and 11 sheets, with moderate monitoring and control at the brick level and heavy monitoring and control at the sheet level).
The requirements are not similar, and as a consequence, neither are the packs.
No, you are the one who is again wrong. EV battery packs are generally significantly lower energy density than portable electronics battery packs, AND they generally run at lower DOD ranges, not charging up to full and not being allowed to even near total discharge. Often a lower-density chemistry is used as well for the same longevity reasons, such as a phosphate or manganese spinel (although a couple manufacturers, Tesla being the most notable, currently use cobalt 18650s). This sort of careful charge maintenance and lower density chemistry election, plus charge balancing, temperature maintenance, and fault isolation and tolerance are necessary to meet the sort of longevity demands of vehicle consumers, which are very different from the longevity demands of users of portable electronics.
The two top demands of EV battery packs are longevity and cost, and these far outstretch the importance of energy density. People could give a rat's arse if their car is 50 kilos lighter if they can't afford to purchase it or have to swap out the pack after three years. Don't get me wrong, weight is an important issue (mainly in terms of ride quality, and to a smaller degree efficiency), but it's not on the same order of magnitude of effect in terms of marketability as longevity and cost.
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I just checked out the energy density thing, seems I got that backwards in my post. Thanks, your post was incredibly informative.
Re:Credibility to rumors? (Score:4, Insightful)
There were huge scholarly style articles breaking down the myriad of reasons apple couldn't succeed. I even read an interview with a blackberry employee who said that when they saw the iPhone they were all relieved that it was going to be a flop as they knew with certainty that it could only have a 1 hour battery life as a computer plus a screen plus a transmitter would require a battery that was much larger than the one that must be inside. Then the guy said that blackberry crapped its collective pants when they got their first iPhone and found that it had a pretty good battery life and that inside the thing was mostly battery as Apple had managed to uber shrink the computer/transmitter part and that the screen was really thin.
I am not saying that Apple will succeed but that to suggest that they will fail because they haven't been doing this for 50 years would be foolish.
That said; one of my theories is that they don't really intend on building a production car but to build awesome prototypes that will teach them what an all electric self driving car will be like and how apple could sell things that will make it better. Plus they will no doubt build up a portfolio of car patents that will pay for the whole effort.
But on the other hand, self driving cars combined with electric cars combined with new materials such as aluminum and carbon fibre are a transition point for the automotive industry. This might allow a competitor such as apple to completely end run the industry because all those years making gas driven drive trains and the complexities in making a great steering system all vanish in this transition. This might then leave the car companies with a legacy of old school engineers who have "seniority" a legacy of pension costs, a legacy of factories not suitable for modern materials, a general lack of computer knowledge, and a legacy of sleazy dealerships. All things that would hold the old school people back.
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You mean, like Tesla already did?
Wait, you're talking self-driving cars with *no* manual override? Okay, that's going to be permitted first thing, in the year 2047... ;)
A widespread transition to composites (which I really, really hope for) could
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You mean, like Tesla already did?
In what way? All Tesla has done is make a car like the other kinds of cars already around, just using an all electric engine. It does not drive itself for example, it does not have an interior substantially different from any other luxury sedan.
An "end run" implies whatever company making it is utterly dominating the market with a totally unique product. Tesla has built some impressive cars but they are far from doing anything like that.
But someone needs to find a way to m
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You're joking, right? Before Tesla the stereotype of an electric car was a nerdy thing with the performance of a golf cart. They completely changed the public perception of electric cars, built vehicles with double the performance and range of the previous best electric cars, getting some of the highest car reviews and satisfaction ratings *ever* given for *any* type of car, and managed to start a brand new car company with a huge valuation, the first new US car company to make it big since the 1930s. Give
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Tesla didn't just build a car, they built a series of important innovations in batteries and battery charging, and then made it so that they wouldn't enforce patents on anything. Now anyone can design their own batteries based on Tesla's design.
That might not seem like much to you, but I assure you that it's a pretty big deal.
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Yes, aluminum is slowly becoming more adopted - although "slowly" is the operative word. Corvettes are not mass manufactured (tens of thousands per year) and are made of single-layer e-glass with polyester, which kind of sucks. Supercars are built better but are in much smaller quantities. And the point of needing to make them affordable and scaling up, that's my point. :)
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You're right. Apple did great, and their portable electronics made them more than any other thing they've ever done. There's nothing wrong with being really good at lego-like construction. However the point here is that apple doesn't do a lot of their own component-level construction. It's logical and smart for them to hire specific expertise in specialized areas for things like battery design which is not so simple as people think it is.
I don't like Apple as a company, but there's no denying the signif
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Apple doesn't really invent hardware components. They're more like lego fans who arrange existing hardware in to their own configurations.
Like most slashdot commenters, you appear all too eager to telegraph your complete and utter lack of knowledge to the world. Loudly.
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The list of hardware tech that Apple has developed is small and underwhelming. It's not zero length, but it's nearly zero impressiveness.
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The original Apples had innovative hardware, such as Wozniak's disk controller. The Mac had at least different types of components, including better monitors and CPUs. There was a period in which Apple tried offering a monitor that when connected to a Microsoft-OS computer would be high-end color, and it went nowhere because it was inferior. Eventually the rest of the computer industry caught up with Apple. The Newton, Pippin, and Cube were innovative, if not necessarily successful.
More recently, the
The old "Apple doesn't invent anything" meme (Score:2)
This is where a group of idiots declares that Apple doesn't invent anything, their employees only "integrate" technology invented elsewhere. As someone who (a) invents hardware technology for a living, and (b) doesn't work for Apple, I can tell you with absolute certainty that you are completely full of shit. Apple does a huge amount of hardware R & D.
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You just gave a nice list of reasons why Apple might want to hire some competent battery engineers.
1. Absent internal knowledge
2. Current products have far lower energy density than other possible batteries
3. All gains currently employed are from software, and that's grown to maturity with diminishing returns setting in.
Yeah, I can't possibly think why they would want to hire some Ph. Ds that know battery technology and start working their own hardware.
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LiFePO4 would be well suited to things like cordless tools and the like. iDrill?
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"Reasonable prices" has never really been an Apple selling point.
Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
If A123 wants to keep their employees, they might have to *gasp* offer them better conditions/compensation? The horror.
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While it may be a dick move from Apple's part, I don't see a problem with this. People should be free to work for whoever the hell they damn well please and should not be able to sign their rights to do so away.
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A compromise might be to limit non-completes to six-months with severance pay.
I don't think this is something where we want to compromise. Non-competes are almost completely illegal in California, I want it to stay that way.
Obligatory (Score:3)
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In Canada, not a problem (Score:5, Informative)
This particular decision actually even went further by saying that poaching clients was fine as well as long as the contact information was reasonably in someone's head.
The result would be that the only place that a non-compete could stand would be if there was another aspect such as the sale of a business. So if someone sold their business for $10,000,000 and then violated an agreed to non-compete there could be a lawsuit to recover some portion of the sale price. But they couldn't get any kind of injunction that would violate your constitutional rights only a monetary judgment.
So while our rights tend to be viewed as less black and white than the US constitution I was pretty much bouncing in my seat and clapping my hands when this decision came down the pipe as a serious blow against corporate tyranny.
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This is also how California works (where Apple is located). But NOT how Massachusetts works (where A123 is located).
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With all due respect Mr.Emperor, you are incorrect. One may find analysis of the judgment you reference here:
http://www.ehlaw.ca/whatsnew/0... [ehlaw.ca]
The decision really has little to do with non-compete clauses in general. A non-compete is only the occasion for the suit not the thrust of the appeal. Rather it has more to do with what happens when a contract (in this case the non-compete) is vague.
In Canada a non-compete is valid as long as it is reasonable, specific, and limited in scope.
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While true, there's still more to it if we tie to a case like this:
It is a well-established principle of Canadian law that any post-employment restriction on
competition or solicitation that goes beyond what is “reasonably required” to protect the
Company’s proprietary rights, such as confidential marketing or pricing information or its client
relationships, will not be enforceable. The overriding issue the courts will consider is whether or
not the clause goes beyond what is reasonable to furnish appropriate protection to the Company.
An important takeaway is that "systematically hiring away A123’s high-tech PhD and engineering employees, thereby effectively shutting down various projects/programs at A123," would not be legal in Canada because that doesn't protect any proprietary rights. A123 does not have a proprietary right to PhDs and engineers, it has a proprietary right to trade relationships with clients and confidential information.
Absent evidence to the contrary, the courts will assume that an employee will honour his
or her obligations with respect to the use of confidential information.
These agreements are not void yet? (Score:2)
Didn't Apple just lose a suit over the legality of noncompete and nonsolicit agreements?
Horrible mismanagement (Score:3)
I am sorry, but if you have a 371 million dollar IPO and then are bankrupt three years later, that is horrible mismanagement. Smart employees are going to leave a company like that.
-Matt
A123 was top for batteries IMO (Score:3)
I'm sure someone will correct me:
I believe A123 had an exclusive with GM/Chevrolet for some time that precluded them from selling to competitors, or to the public. The enthusiast community in the US (electric car, bike, etc kits) then had to rely on re-importing A123 batteries from China/black market that had potentially been exported from the US into the grey market. This made them tough to get, but they had an ideal form factor, power density and draw rate.
If this play by Apple can change that scenario at all, it would be a big move.
Rock star status (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, I'm all for engineers attaining rock star status. Let the bidding begin. Although agents and head hunters will have to actually work for the engineers and not the employers as they do now.
Re:Wait ... (Score:5, Informative)
A123 has had a number of problems, from their bankruptcy in 2012 [nytimes.com], their massive layoffs and executive bonuses [nlpc.org], to later being purchased by a Chinese company and selling off their assets
Also, non-compete agreements are not valid in California. Even out-of-state NCAs are invalidated if the employee is to work at a CA company, (Exceptions if the employee is a stakeholder/partner/owner, which doesn't apply here).
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Also, non-compete agreements are not valid in California. Even out-of-state NCAs are invalidated if the employee is to work at a CA company
But isn't the employee still bound to the contract he signed in Massachusetts? California can't invalidate other states' contract laws.
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What about transferring company trade secrets to a competitor, like Apple? After all, there is no shortage of PhDs with knowledgeable in battery tech. Why did Apple hire 5 whopping engineers from a single company instead of from the open market? Was it because they had experience in this technology?
Re:Wait ... (Score:4, Insightful)
As for going for a team, this is not the first time that a team, or a significant portion of a team, has moved as a group from one company to another, and it certainly won't be the last. If A123 wants to retain their employees then they need to sweeten the pot for their employees. That could be more pay, or better working conditions, or more vacation time, or whatever those employees want. If another company makes a better offer then those employees have every right to pursue that offer.
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What about transferring company trade secrets to a competitor, like Apple?
Transferring trade secrets is illegal. But the fear that someone might transfer trade secrets (commit a crime) shouldn't stop them from getting employed, because most people do _not_ become criminals. Apart from that, _if_ Apple wanted trade secrets they could just pay the guys, they wouldn't have to employ them. Apart from that, no company including Apple would knowingly accept such trade secrets, because that would make someone at Apple criminal, and nobody wants to go to jail.
What this is about is tha
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According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], stealing or misappropriating a trade secret is a Federal crime. (IANAL, and I don't know whether this applies.) Other than that, it's state law, and a state might well criminalize transferring trade secrets illegitimately.
A "trade secret" is not just a phrase, it's a legal concept.
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I think you are mistaken. Unauthorized transferring of a trade secrets (or conspiring to do so) is criminal both federally [cornell.edu] and in CA [ca.gov] and the damages are likely to accrue to civil proceedings as well if there is any tort claims.
As I understand it, it is an extension of the laws that restrict unfair competition.
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It is, but trade secrets are fleeting things and hard to prove. They are also hard to seperate from simple expertise in a field.
If a new hire says "At my former employer, we did Y because X always fails", it sounds like a trade secret, but the equivilent statement "X is unlikely to work well, let's try Y" is fairly hard to prove. Even "I've never seen X work, but Y looks good" is a bit ambiguous.
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Why did Apple hire 5 whopping engineers from a single company instead of from the open market?
They hired on the open market. You can hire engineers who either are unemployed, or who are willing to quit their current job. So it seems that either A123 laid off these five engineers, or the company is so awful that five engineers are willing to leave at the same time. From what I hear, both is equally likely. And from what I hear, I wouldn't put it beyond these guys to first fire an engineer, and then preventing him from getting another job.
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The fact that Apple made them an offer they didn't want to refuse hardly proves A123 are awful.
They might be. But this isn't evidence of that.
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5 PhDs VS 5 PhDs with credentials proving their ability to satisfy their specific needs. That's why.
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This is one company suing another company for not having to invest in plain employees to make them look attractive to another employer.
Re: Wait ... (Score:5, Informative)
A contract usually requires an exchange of consideration. If you're going to demand that one of the parties agree to terms beyond their agreed upon work duration, then you need to provide them with compensation beyond that duration.
And anyway, you can't sign away your civil rights. An employer can't make you sign a contract that says "...and I will be your slave forever and will never work for another company."
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Unless you're talking about discrimination against a protected class, they can indeed make you sign whatever they want, if you want to keep your job. You can sue if they fire you for it, but you'll lose. The burden of proof would be on you to show that your former employer fired you for not signing that contract, and that they acted improperly when they did so. With Apple's l
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Perhaps I should have stated it differently. They can make you sign it, but the contract itself wouldn't be worth the paper it was printed on. I can twist someone's arm and make them sign a contract agreeing to be my slave for life. But no court of law is going to recognize it as a valid.
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I think you might be under the impression that you would prevail in a court of law, or, indeed, that being in the right has any affect on a lawsuit's outcome. It doesn't matter who's wrong and who's right; the party with the better lawyers wins the case, regardless of how wrong they might be.
Even if you did eventually prevail in court, by the time you got there you'd be an unemployable pauper. No company would give you a job (you're obviously a malcontent and a troublemaker who works contrary to your empl
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I don't know, man, it sounds like you were in a position to argue. You could have asked him what it was worth to him.
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Your fault for accepting. Never take a first offer.
Even if I had no intention of contacting former clients I would have said I intended to. Just to get more money.
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Who says they didn't get that compensation?
When the employees signed the contract, they sure as hell thought it was sufficient compensation.
This isn't some non-compete for a totally different joy; these employees are basically doing the exact same job, but at a competitor.
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So a cook at a restaurant would not have a valid non-compete but if you were the head cook who designed all the recipes and the menu and were paid above what the other cooks made and were limited from working with-in 100 miles of the restaurant for the next two
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You are right. It depends on the state and statutes vary widely. My understanding is that noncompete contracts are hard to enforce in California, but obviously this company thinks it is possible.
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And anyway, you can't sign away your civil rights
You absolutely can sign away certain rights.
If I sign a contract that says "don't reveal what you saw here" as a stipulation of getting a tour of some restricted area (say, a movie studio), then I post on my blog everything that I saw, yes I'm legally liable. Probably not criminally liable, but those are two different things.
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By having governments enforce contracts you just externalize the costs of dealing with dishonorable people.
I thought that was the point.
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Contracts should exist similar to loans or buying things on ebay. There is risk to both parties making the contract and you can only go by the reputation of the party you are dealing with.
By having governments enforce contracts you just externalize the costs of dealing with dishonorable people.
If these employees signed a contract with A123 and broke it the only thing A123 should be able to do is make those contracts public and try to hurt the reputation of those employees.
Yeah, I think that's how organized crime works... Hopefully you aren't suggesting that A123 goes that route to enforce their contracts...
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Of course there are many laws enforced by governments concerning with how you are allowed to use credit ratings (not discriminatory), how you can get recourse for mistakes, how long dings/marks/bankruptcies are allowed to stay on your credit report, various usury and reporting laws, etc, etc..
OTOH, with less regulation, you get things like "bond-rating" companies that can collude with security issuers causing chain reactions that put the whole economy in the dumpers for a few years...
The question at the roo
Re: (Score:2)
Apple isn't even a party to these A123 agreements. Those are between A123 and the employees, so unless A123 is arguing some sort of wacky six-way conspiracy I think Apple will get this dismissed rather quickly.
Then A123 can decide if they want to sue the individuals, whereupon Apple will provide the five with complementary legal counsel to point out that non-compete agreements aren't valid in California.
Re: (Score:2)
And, since the employees are not employed in Massachusetts, they are not violating the agreement in Massachusetts. I think A123 is going to need to sue them in California where the contracts are being violated (and are void due to superseding state law). The employees just need to be sure not to visit MA for business until the non-compete term wears out.