Ownership
Confidentiality
Obliges you to protect the company's information, typically without a time limit for trade secrets.
Where to find it
The invention assignment agreement, and usually restated in the employment agreement.
Search your document for: confidential proprietary information trade secret non-disclosure
Which version do you have?
Wording paraphrased for teaching. Yours will differ; the shape is what matters.
Usually fine
“Employee shall not disclose Confidential Information, defined as non-public information relating to the Company's business.”
Standard, and one you should be following anyway. Note it survives your departure.
Needs a question
“Confidential Information includes any information Employee learns in the course of employment, whether or not marked confidential.”
Very broad definition. It reinforces why nothing, including your own working notes, should move between roles.
Ask this before you sign
- Does the definition cover general skills and knowledge, or only company-specific information?
What this clause means when you hold two roles
Reading the clause is one thing; knowing how it interacts with a second employer's agreement, where it sits in the self-audit, and what to do when two contracts disagree is the part that takes the work. That analysis, the agreement-review worksheet and the searchable library live in the course.
More in Ownership
- Intellectual property assignmentDecides who owns what you create. For someone with one job this is mostly theoretical. For someone with two it is the mechanism by which one employer ends up with a claim over work done for the other.
- Prior inventions scheduleLists what you already owned before you joined, so it is carved out of the assignment. Most people leave it blank because they are signing on their first day and nobody explains it.
Generic wording written for teaching, not copied from any real agreement. Employment law varies by country and state. This is not legal advice — see the disclaimer.