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FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

ftc.gov

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Re: FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

#451

Post by gnicholas »

Scipio_Afri wrote: post #441
gnicholas wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that some people will be priced out of the labor market because they are only allowed to exchange their labor at/above a set rate. If your labor is worth $10/hr because you have very little job experience, you will be unemployed in a jurisdiction where the minimum wage is $15/hr. It is not "best for people's freedom" to have that restriction; it benefits some people (those who remain employed) and worse…

Very simplistic view. A worker at $15/hour isn’t as productive as someone who also makes $15/hour - that happens every day at all levels of the labor industry. There is a net economic loss - externalities imposed on society - to people working at jobs where their basic needs aren’t being met. That comes in the cost of mental and physical health issues of the worker as well as their family through their inability to p…

Ah, so better to have them be unemployed?

Re: FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

#452

Post by bratbag »

BurningFrog wrote: post #328
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…

I think different patent lengths for different industries would do much to improve the current insanity.

I think full audited accounting of research costs should be included in the patent filing and that the patent should end either after 20 years or until profits from the invention (including payments from other companies licencing the invention) match 10x the costs.

And the maximum payout on violating a patent should be the remaining profit to end the patent.

Differences between industries then look after themselves.

Re: FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

#453

Post by yladiz »

andthenzen wrote: post #403
davidgay wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

It’s not illegal, but from what I understand an excessively long notice period would very likely be shot down by the courts. There are a lot of arguments to be made here (for example, what’s stopping an employer from putting a 5 year notice period from day 1 if they can put an arbitrary one?). I imagine if companies do increase it or introduce one in general, it would be closer to 1 month, maybe 2, not 6.

Re: FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

#454

Post by lanstin »

bilsbie wrote: post #373
lanstin wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe software patents require releasing the source code and last for a shorter term related to the pace of technological change. Then the incentive to share the advance is preserved instead of everything being a trade secret.

There’s not much in software that other people can’t figure out on their own though. Not too much social benefit in sharing.

I think Linux is a strong counter argument. And software might be simple to recreate, but it’s a shame to have so many smart folks spend time reinventing the wheel instead of building on each others work.

Re: FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

#455

Post by account42 »

syklep wrote: post #432
Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He rejected $30,000,000. Jury awarded 1/6 after litigation. Ford payed double to get rid of this nuisance. $30 million in 1990 was fuck you money. It’s still enough to comfortably retire on for a high school aged person.

Inflation begs to differ. That much money left liquid for 60 years at 10% inflation will be worth less than 100k of today’s money. Edit: sorry about the non sequitur. Bitterly learning about inflation and fiat recently.

What? That's not how inflation works. Even left to rot in a bank account it would still be 30 mil today. Not worth as much as 30 mil in 1990 but still worth as much as 30 mil in 2024 because it is still 30 mil.

Re: FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

#456

Post by account42 »

lanstin wrote: post #454
bilsbie wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s not much in software that other people can’t figure out on their own though. Not too much social benefit in sharing.

I think Linux is a strong counter argument. And software might be simple to recreate, but it’s a shame to have so many smart folks spend time reinventing the wheel instead of building on each others work.

But the value in Linux is not the innovation but the sheer effort to (re-)create it. Patents don't protect that at all, copyright does (not that I am arguing for copyright, it also causes more problems than it solves).

Re: FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

#457

Post by bdowling »

patmcc wrote: post #327
EasyMark wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the lifetime of patents short? I mean they last for 20 years, that's an entire generation of time to make a profit?

They're short relative to other IP (like copyright), and short relative to inventions that have long R&D and cost recovery timelines. If $NEW_DRUG takes 5 years to develop, 5 years to trial, 5 years to market, and 5 years to profit...20 years isn't all that long. If the invention takes 3 weeks and $0, yeah, 20 years is a long time.

> If the invention takes 3 weeks and $0…

…then the patent can be invalidated on the basis that it is obvious.

If the invention is commercially valuable, then invalidating it (or just pretending it doesn’t exist until you get sued, then invalidating it) can make more sense than licensing it.

A related issue is that there are many, many patents that most people (e.g., competitors) mostly ignore, because everyone, including the patent owner, knows that they would be invalidated if challenged.

Re: FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

#458

Post by anal_reactor »

cjen wrote: post #24

This seems incredibly important. I know non-compete rules personally held me back at a previous tech job. I'm interested to see how this hits finance firms – I know people who were forced to take a year off between jobs (although they were compensated the whole time). Always thought that would be a pretty sweet deal.

I'm wondering whether EU will decide to adopt similar laws

Re: FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

#459

Post by orlp »

account42 wrote: post #455
syklep wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflation begs to differ. That much money left liquid for 60 years at 10% inflation will be worth less than 100k of today’s money. Edit: sorry about the non sequitur. Bitterly learning about inflation and fiat recently.

What? That's not how inflation works. Even left to rot in a bank account it would still be 30 mil today. Not worth as much as 30 mil in 1990 but still worth as much as 30 mil in 2024 because it is still 30 mil.

The only way I can think of it making sense is if @syklep is from a country with a currency that has inflated 10% every year with respect to the dollar for the past 60 years, and that they assumed you'd buy local currency with the $30m when you get it and now would try to sell it back for dollars.

I don't think that currency exists though. The closest current example I can think of is if you're Argentinian and you bought $30m worth of Argentinian pesos in 1992 which would be worth ~$35k today. But that is due to relatively recent hyperinflation, not yearly 10% inflation, 10 years ago it would still be worth $4.3m, 15 years ago $8.8m.

You'd have to be seriously asleep at the wheel (or being strong-armed by local law enforcement, unfortunately) to keep your liquid currency parked in a hyperinflationary currency.

Re: FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

#460

Post by Jiro »

xpe wrote: post #433
adastra22 wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s called Chevron deference / doctrine, and yes the consequences would be far reaching. Whether the net benefit is good or bad is largely a subjective matter of political opinion.

Thanks. I just read [1]. > Whether the net benefit is good or bad is largely a subjective matter of political opinion. Without knowing the intention of the author above, when I see the phrase "subjective matter of political opinion", it makes me wonder if it serves as a "semantic stop sign" or "thought-terminating cliché"[2]. WRT net benefits... it is one thing to have differing predictions about what will happen and…

>For example, in the cases of an ambiguous law, who is better suited to understand the ambiguity...

"Understanding the ambiguity" is fine if we are talking about trying to figure out what was intended by the people who put the ambiguous phrases in. But the issue isn't about who can "understand" the ambiguity, it's about who's going to be making things up and giving the ambiguity as an excuse. Asking whether bureaucrats or judges are better at "understanding the ambiguity" is the wrong question--understanding something and doing it are very different things. They'd just understand that the law is supposed to be X, and give a spurious justification about it being Y instead anyway.

Your use of phrases like "thought-terminating cliche" makes you sound like a rationalist. In which case I hope you know what a quokka is. (For the uninitiated, a quokka is an animal that can't understand that someone might want to hurt it.) If someone has an agenda that is against your interests, having "better knowledge" and being "better suited to understand" and "having experience" just makes it easier for them to harm you.

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