Intellectual property when leaving a job....

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My employer threatens to sue me if I take the job.

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Get a lawyer

I signed a confidiality agreement. And he said he was going to sue me because in the agreement it has intellectual property. I never signed a non compete clause.

I think also think it's unreasonable. But I don't want to be in a legal battle if I don't have to.

A few thoughts:

1) If I were you, I would have worked my last day at my current employer. Threatening to sue me over leaving has forever poisioned that working relationship. There is no going back on that one.

2) Are you forever supposed to work for this company? Are you in Louisiana? In LA, anyone can be fired, or can quit, any job for just about any reason.

3) I would think that if you left, and you did "steal" IP and use it in your new job, or if you took company information with you, then your soon to be former employer might have a cause of action. But simply changing jobs, I don't see how that would violate anything, unless you signed a contract for a term, which it does not appear you did.

4) Yes, he can sue you... anyone can sue anyone. Which means you have to defend it. If it comes to that, I'd file whatever needs to be filed to make him pay ALL your legal fees when this lawsuit is thrown out by the judge.

Good luck... sounds like your current boss is a real piece of work.

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Intellectual property shouldn't exist. I'm just gonna leave that here.

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I don't think you've thought that one through.

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I think also think it's unreasonable. But I don't want to be in a legal battle if I don't have to.

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Neither does he. This is a weak threat. Even companies like Apple and Google with absolute armies of lawyers have problems with intellectual property cases.

They're absurdly difficult to uphold.

Before you do anything, contact the employer that offered you the job explain the situation and give them a copy of what you signed. They'll almost definitely get sued as well and their insurer may advise them it's not worth the hassle to keep you as an employee. Then again, they may decide your worth it and agree to defend and indemnify you. This is the first thing I'd do so you don't get screwed twice. Just sayin, being jobless is tough in this economy. Not giving any career advice but your employer prob intends to pursue the claim regardless of what you signed. Those suits can get messy.

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I don't think you've thought that one through.

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Lot of economic research on IP rights and whether patents stifle innovation.

I fall on the shorten patent and IP rights length but there are some major economic figures that support eliminating patents all together

I think this is smart, but, If I were you, I would do everything I could to get away from your current employer. I understand that if he is threatening you, that might be hard to do. It's like an abusive relationship.

I'm sorry you are having to go through this. How big a company do you work for currently? Is the boss also the owner?

Check to make sure you never sent any documents between your work and personal emails even if it was just to do work at home or something. If you leave, they'll probably run a forensic check on your computer (assuming you work for a larger, more profitable company) to see every email you sent and every document you downloaded off their servers. Generally, the comments above regarding enforceability of non-compete and non-disclosure agreements are correct, but competent attorneys should be able to spin a couple downloads and emails into a case for misappropriation of CI.