As a California business owner, chances are, you exercise care before hiring someone new, and you make efforts to ensure that the people you hire use discretion when it comes to sharing important information about your business. What happens, though, when someone you placed in a position of trust chooses to leave your operation and sign on at a competitors? At Kashfian & Kashfian, LLP, we recognize the importance of protecting your business’s trade secrets and intellectual property, and we have helped many California business owners establish non-disclosure agreements in an effort to better protect them.
Per Forbes, while the exact contents of your non-disclosure agreement will typically vary broadly based on your business’s specific needs, there are several key elements that the majority of today’s business owners choose to include. Additionally, it may benefit you and your company to keep your non-disclosure agreement relatively concise, as if it becomes too long or complicated, your employees may miss its key points.
So, what might prove wise to include in your non-disclosure agreement? First, you want to establish exactly who the agreement covers, and you will also want to include specifics about when, exactly, it apples. For example, you may want to stipulate that your non-disclosure agreement applies during employment with your company, as well as for some time after. That way, employees who leave you and sign on at a competing company must still adhere to its terms.
You will also want to include specifics about what, exactly, constitutes your company’s confidential information, and whether any information relating to your company is specifically excluded from your non-disclosure agreement. While these are some of the key elements you may want to include in your agreement, please note that this is not an exhaustive list of all possible areas to touch upon. You can find more about protecting your business on our webpage.