Can I eSign Kentucky Employee confidentiality agreement

Can i document type e sign employee confidentiality agreement kentucky

welcome to the McNees intellectual property podcast series this podcast will address employee confidentiality and intellectual property agreements by Bruce Wollstonecraft attorney at law mr. Wolfson Croft is a member of the intellectual property and Patent groups of McNees every company or organization has confidential information which if shared with the competition could cause the company to lose its competitive edge and negatively impact revenue examples of confidential information include information and data related to business strategy and product development customer and vendor lists and company financial information such as profit margins and pricing strategies a recent survey stated that 87% of employees who leave a job take with them information or data that they created in the job and 28% took information or data that others had created 88% of those employees took corporate presentations which contain business strategy documents 31% to a customer list and 25% took other types of intellectual property one way to protect the information and reduce the risk of employees taking information with them is to have every employee sign an employee confidentiality and intellectual property agreement an effective agreement does not need to be a long drawn-out document full of confusing legal language however some common provisions should be included in these agreements the agreement must properly identify the type of confidential and trade secret information that the employee or company intends to protect to achieve a balance between defending the protected information to narrowly versus an overly broad definition that might be perceived by a court as unrealistic and unenforceable if there are circumstances under which confidential information should be disclosed for legitimate business reasons the agreement should provide instructions about how and to whom disclosure of the information is appropriate the agreement should make clear that all confidentiality obligations survive the termination of employment as of 2016 the agreement should also contain line which related to the immunity provisions for whistleblowers required under the defend Trade Secrets Act if you have not recently revised your employee confidentiality agreement this provision has likely not been included the agreement should also include an assignment of ownership from the employee to the company of any work or intellectual property created by the employee that is related to the company's business absent such an assignment the employee will own the intellectual property with the company only having limited non-exclusive rights if these agreements are entered into at the beginning of employment no additional consideration is needed however if the agreement is entered into after the beginning of the employment additional consideration may be required depending on the applicable state law while we have discussed employee confidentiality and intellectual property agreements companies must also have appropriate agreements in place with third parties such as independent contractors and suppliers in order to protect their confidential information and obtain intellectual property rights it is important to remember that absent a proper agreement paying someone to develop a product or software does not mean that you have all the rights you need to properly conduct your business please contact me with any questions you have regarding the agreements or any other intellectual property questions thank you [Music] you