Employee Confidential Information and Inventions Agreement

Although California generally prohibits non-competition agreements, employers have commonly understood that they could prevent an employee and his or her new employer from using former employers' confidential information.

Examples of confidential information include, but are not limited to: Information about the Company's operations, results, earnings projections, strategies, clients or client relationships, proprietary products or employee records.

First, if you're in California, Labor Code § 2870 puts significant limits on what your employer can claim, regardless of the contract. Basically, they can't claim anything you developed before you arrived or anything that's unrelated to their business (unless you used their facilities to develop it).

A confidentiality agreement is a written legal contract between an employer and an employee. The confidentiality agreement lays out binding terms and conditions that prohibit the employee from disclosing company confidential and proprietary information.

Also known as Proprietary Information and Inventions Assignment Agreements (or PIIAAs), Confidential Information and Inventions Assignment Agreements ensure that intellectual property and other proprietary rights created by employees during the course of their employment are assigned to the employer.

To prevent employees from revealing sensitive information that could jeopardize your business, you might have them sign an employee confidentiality agreement. Businesses use employee confidentiality agreements to protect their innovative ideas, effective processes, unique products, or customer information.

An invention assignment agreement is a contract that gives the employer certain rights to inventions created or conceptualized by the employee during the employment relationship.

PIIA is the acronym for the most common name for these agreements, ''proprietary information and invention assignment'' agreements.The agreement also requires that the employee agree that whatever the employee creates, discovers, develops or invents while employed with the company is owned by the company.