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FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

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Re: FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

#401

Post by Aloisius »

HaZeust wrote: post #268
timeflex wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally federal law will preempt state law. See the Court's decisions regarding California's attempt to ban arbitration agreements in employment contracts. Now, that doesn't mean the Supreme Court won't come up with their own hot take, but at some point appeals and district courts are just going to say no when they send a case back. What is the Supreme Court going to do? Federal judges can only be removed by impeac…

As Jackson quipped; "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it." We'll see where this goes, and if it's honored.

The quote is likely apocryphal.

There was nothing to enforce as the court didn't impose any obligations on Jackson.

Re: FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

#402

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

eatsyourtacos wrote: post #185
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tipping culture stays because consumers don't want to pay what the product is worth. You reduce salaries and suddenly the food looks cheaper, and the "tip" is what they took out of the salaries. When restaurants end tipping, consumers revolt at the real prices.

That's a bunch of bullshit. The tips advantage the EMPLOYER because there is zero transparency to the consumer. I have no idea how much every server I go to is making. How do I know if it's good or bad? How do I know if they have any benefits? Especially now that everyone wants a fucking tip. I buy some ice cream with my kids and I'm supposed to tip 20% to someone for scooping my ice cream? I have no idea if the serv…

Countless American restaurants have experimented with removing tipping over the years. Nearly every single one of them goes back to tips, and the reason cited is the customers balk at the prices.

Re: FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

#403

Post by andthenzen »

davidgay wrote: post #394
zippothrowaway wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the employee agreement you sign includes a notice period of 6 months from either side. I think you're right that negotiated gardening leave will happen but I can also see companies baking in the gardening leave at the start of employment (so no longer at will) as being cheaper.

> Or the employee agreement you sign includes a notice period of 6 months from either side. Those are illegal in at-will states.

Source? My understanding is that at-will states have a default presumption of at-will employment in the absence of a contract, but parties are free to contract alternatively. Which states invalidate mutually agreed upon notice periods?

Re: FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

#404

Post by _akhe »

benced wrote: post #380
_akhe wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not bad when people are copying you, it signals that California is ahead of the curve on the issue and - upon further examination - others too like decriminalization of cannabis including removing it from background checks and drug testing for most employment, as well as certain tenant and landlord rights other states don't have. Some of those non-competes were ridiculous with their "in perpetuity throughout the…

It is bad for a state - at least in relative terms - if it has a good thing and suddenly every state has that good thing. It means that people that might have once moved to California for its laws will no longer do so.

That mentality is like saying "I'm only rich if others are poor" - you can of course still be well off, even when others occasionally catch up, and maybe better off if the tide lifts all boats. Also what you say doesn't go against the point about signaling. There's something to being on the cutting edge vs not.

> people that might have once moved to California for its laws will no longer do so

Which is a huge demographic right? After all, most people don't come to California for its incredible beaches, paychecks, food, diversity, entertainment, etc. it's our wonderful laws that attract everyone, right?

Re: FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

#406

Post by kiba »

saulpw wrote: post #395
kiba wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patents are no longer about protecting R&D investments. Patents are always the tool of the moneyed and the lawyered, which is not the same thing as protecting R&D investment. There are exception, such as the guy who spent 12 years suing car companies over the windshield wiper, but that actually proves the rule because of time spent. It even apparently cause his marriage to break down. [1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/…

To be fair, this appears to be a case of greed: > Kearns sought $395 million in damages. He turned down a $30 million settlement offer in 1990 and took it to the jury, which awarded him $5.2 million; Ford agreed to pay $10.2 million rather than face another round of litigation.

Presumably, the point of a patent is to 'protect' the little guy which I would argued actually doesn't.

Not that I don't agree with you, what makes Kearns' pursuit 'greedy'?

Re: FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

#407

Post by mrcode007 »

infotainment wrote: post #270
crote wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory? Yes. In practice? No. For a lot of industries 20 years is an awfully long time to the point of complete irrelevance - and that "detailed information" is often vague enough to be unusable. Combine that with an overly-broad range of patent-able things and an overworked USPTO granting clearly invalid patents, and in practice (at least in the tech/software world) it's doing more harm than good. Patents are no…

Definitely agree — software patents should be abolished, full stop. They serve no purpose but to impede innovation and progress. I’d argue the same applies to all patents; the world would be better off without them in general.

There are no software patents.

https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/RT2%206-...

Re: FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

#408

Post by chrisco255 »

dctoedt wrote: post #377
slotrans wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The federal government can absolutely regulate both employment and contract law Where in Article I Section 8 does the Constitution grant that power?

> Where in Article I Section 8 does the Constitution grant that power? The Commerce Clause, when interpreted expansively — as federal courts have largely done. (We'll see what happens with the 6-3 conservative majority of this SCOTUS incarnation.)

They've actually gone through different eras of interpreting expansively or restrictively.

Re: FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

#409

Post by xpe »

oceanplexian wrote: post #334
jameshart wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Government agencies are overseen by officers of the United States, appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the senate, typically to terms greater than the length of either a presidential to senate term. Just like Judges. The idea that courts are the only delegates of the elected representatives of the people who are allowed to figure out the nuances of how to carry out the democratically leg…

It’s not really a brainworm, it’s the fact that people see the government in radically different ways. My view is that as long as there’s genuine consent, two parties agree to something, no one is coerced, both are of sound mind, two human beings should be able to enter into any contract you can imagine. It doesn’t matter if that’s Gay Marriage or a firearms transaction. The role of government should only be to ensur…

The world consists of more than two people. It isn't just about them. Am I misunderstanding your point?

Many individuals care about society as a useful construct -- a construct that is not easily calculable from individual utilities. [1] This would suggest that even utilitarians should care about society -- unless they think they get to define what matters to their precious individuals. [2]

[1] Sure, one can say society is _causally_ derived from individual actions, but... (1) the derivation of what society looks like is not predictable enough for the time scales we care about; (2) individuals are influenced by society, as a matter of perception

[2] If I may attempt some satire, I wouldn't at all be surprised if some utilitarians are a sort of "mini-autocrat" at heart -- in the sense they get to decide what counts in every individual's utility function. e.g. "I value you, individuals!, yes I do!... but I get to tell you what really matters for your happiness! and after I do that I decree that the summation operator is how we put it all together!"

Re: FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

#410

Post by mncharity »

mrandish wrote: post #266
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #59

Full text of the ruling here: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/noncompete-rule... It's not surprising after thinking about it for a minute, but it did startle me to read that the FTC measures innovation by the number of patents issued. > In addition, the final rule is expected to help drive innovation, leading to an estimated average increase of 17,000 to 29,000 more patents each year for the next 10 year…

> I've always thought of that as representing a stifling of innovation. Sadly, over my long career as a tech startup entrepreneur, my experience has been that your assumption is correct the vast majority of the time. Now when I teach or mentor young tech entrepreneurs I'm often explaining why they probably don't want to prioritize filing patents as part of their startup strategy. While there are certain exceptions, e…

I wonder how frequent that is, the "We've pointless patents. And legal budget larger than your last round. Thank for playing, goodbye." It seems a reoccurring theme.

But as for the usefulness of patents to startups, at least with material-science-y hardware, I've heard possession of a defensive patent portfolio described as "table stakes" for existence, with enforceability et al being secondary.

It was interesting watching patents and unicorn dreams shape VR. Instead of years of commercial ferment exploring low-hanging niches, we wait for monoliths to eventually create maximally-hard mass-market consumer tech, and will then backfill easier niches, eventually. An industrial policy optimized for pharma, yielding pharma-shaped industries.

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