I signed one of these contracts in 2006. I went to work for a company in product design and development, and since my work was new product design and development, everything I worked on at that time became the property of the company.
There was also a two-year non-compete clause that forbid me from working with any of their direct competitors afterwards.
I signed the contract because I wanted to do the work, and because I knew that all the other places would have me sign the same contract. I also thought that this company was the most progressive of the group. Finally, I wanted my ideas to be funded, and so in exchange for the time and the resources that they promised to put towards my work, I would provide them with the ideas. We were both taking risks to achieve a greater goal together.
In the end, they reneged on their side of the bargain and didn't provide the necessary funding to complete the production and testing that the product design needed. After trying to get the work done myself in-house by funneling time and energy away from other projects towards mine, it came to a head and it was acknowledged that they weren't going to fund the work and that we needed to part ways.
On the day that decision was made, I was escorted out, leaving everything behind, my notebooks, and all my digital research files.
Several years later, when they won a large contract for work that was in the area that I was working on, my manager took me out for lunch and said that I had just been about 5 years ahead of the curve, and that they hadn't had the resources to carry that type of research and development that far ahead of a clear billable opportunity.
When I asked him about the files and the notebooks, he said that nothing ever happened to them, they were all just filed away in the archives.
I left understanding their situation well. It's hard to fund something when it's not clear when the payoff will materialize, and when it did materialize, they were able to get there first anyways. So the loss of five years in R&D wasn't noticed, by them, their clients, or the industry.
The lesson that I did learn was - back up your files offsite, and have duplicate notebooks, one that is your private notebook and one that is your office notebook. Because when you sign a contract like this, you have to be prepared to leave everything onsite when it ends.
The irony with the 2 year non-compete is that after I left, non of the other firms were interested in even discussing the work that I had done. Which is why these guys were the only ones that I could have worked with in the first place, and it's why they were the only ones able to secure the contracts when the need for the technology finally arrived.
And there wasn't much I could do with the technology myself, since it was untested and unproved and I couldn't fund the research myself. So the non-compete clause didn't impact me much either.
Perhaps this sheds some light on why the contracts exist and why people like me sign them.
There was also a two-year non-compete clause that forbid me from working with any of their direct competitors afterwards.
I signed the contract because I wanted to do the work, and because I knew that all the other places would have me sign the same contract. I also thought that this company was the most progressive of the group. Finally, I wanted my ideas to be funded, and so in exchange for the time and the resources that they promised to put towards my work, I would provide them with the ideas. We were both taking risks to achieve a greater goal together.
In the end, they reneged on their side of the bargain and didn't provide the necessary funding to complete the production and testing that the product design needed. After trying to get the work done myself in-house by funneling time and energy away from other projects towards mine, it came to a head and it was acknowledged that they weren't going to fund the work and that we needed to part ways.
On the day that decision was made, I was escorted out, leaving everything behind, my notebooks, and all my digital research files.
Several years later, when they won a large contract for work that was in the area that I was working on, my manager took me out for lunch and said that I had just been about 5 years ahead of the curve, and that they hadn't had the resources to carry that type of research and development that far ahead of a clear billable opportunity.
When I asked him about the files and the notebooks, he said that nothing ever happened to them, they were all just filed away in the archives.
I left understanding their situation well. It's hard to fund something when it's not clear when the payoff will materialize, and when it did materialize, they were able to get there first anyways. So the loss of five years in R&D wasn't noticed, by them, their clients, or the industry.
The lesson that I did learn was - back up your files offsite, and have duplicate notebooks, one that is your private notebook and one that is your office notebook. Because when you sign a contract like this, you have to be prepared to leave everything onsite when it ends.
The irony with the 2 year non-compete is that after I left, non of the other firms were interested in even discussing the work that I had done. Which is why these guys were the only ones that I could have worked with in the first place, and it's why they were the only ones able to secure the contracts when the need for the technology finally arrived.
And there wasn't much I could do with the technology myself, since it was untested and unproved and I couldn't fund the research myself. So the non-compete clause didn't impact me much either.
Perhaps this sheds some light on why the contracts exist and why people like me sign them.