Intellectual Property and Restrictive Covenants
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT LAW AND ECONOMICS, Dau-Schmidt, Harris & Lobel, eds., Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009
41 Pages Posted: 17 Aug 2008
Date Written: August, 14 2008
Abstract
This chapter, for the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Labor and Employment Law and Economics, provides an overview of legal and economic analysis of contractual and regulatory constraints on the use of knowledge, skill and information acquired during the employment relationship. Three interrelated areas of employment regulation are discussed: (1) Covenants not-to-compete; (2) trade secrets and non-disclosure agreements; and (3) employee inventions, including pre-invention patent assignment agreements. Drawing both on theoretical literature and empirical analyses of different parts of the labor market, the chapter considers the effects of employment-based intellectual property ('EIP') law on market innovation and mobility and analyses recent studies of high velocity markets in relation to EIP law.
Keywords: intellectual property, employment law, human capital, labor markets, high-tech markets, information economy, mobility, innovation, growth, law and economics
JEL Classification: J40, J41, J60, K21, K31, K12, J24, J23, L60, L51
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation