Employee Confidentiality and Invention Assignment Agreement

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Personnel information is confidential, and information in an employee's file, such as social security number, salary, health records, disciplinary actions and termination reason can't be discussed with other employees. Most of this information can't be discussed with potential employers who call for a reference.

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).