“Apple may have a real fight on its hands if it believes Mark Papermaster is the right man to nurture the iPhone,” Tom Krazit reports for CNET.
“In an age where employees move between companies as often as relief pitchers change teams, noncompete agreements seem an outdated concept. But lawyers say the noncompete agreement that Papermaster signed with IBM is serious business that demonstrates how companies are increasingly looking to enforce restrictions on their most important employees, and that could force Apple and IBM to share valuable information to make their argument stick,” Krazit reports.
“IBM is suing Papermaster for violating the terms of a noncompete agreement, which he signed in 2006, when he accepted an offer to run Apple’s iPhone group in October. He claims that since he’ll be working on a product that does not compete with anything IBM offers, that agreement should not apply. But it may not matter: the agreement he signed contains broad provisions regarding where and how Papermaster could seek employment for a year following his departure from the company, and it’s very enforceable in New York, where IBM is based,” Krazit reports.
“The central question surrounding Papermaster’s noncompete–and really any noncompete–is whether his activities at Apple would harm IBM. “The court has to find that the noncompete is necessary to protect the interests of the employer,” said Robert Scott, a professor at Columbia Law School and director of the Center on Contract and Economic Organization,” Krazit reports.
“Noncompete clauses don’t appear to be going anywhere, despite California’s decision to ban them earlier this year. If anything, companies are getting bolder about their use of restrictions like noncompete clauses,” Krazit reports.
Much more in the full article here.
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