No Delete Button For Your Brain

An employee can’t unlearn information that belongs to a former employer. The “Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine” is a term of art in trade secret law. The Doctrine applies to bar a former employee with knowledge of the employer’s trade secrets and confidential information from accepting a similar role with the employer’s competitor. In Utilisave, LLC v. Miele, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the entry of a preliminary injunction under the Doctrine. The preliminary injunction was based on the substantial overlap between the former employee’s old job and his new one which was basically the same role, in the same industry, for the same geographic territory. With this kind of overlap, the court felt the former employee was likely to use confidential information and trade secrets to the detriment of his former employer. The preliminary injunction was warranted even though there wasn’t actual misappropriation of any particular trade secret or confidential information.

WHY YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS. The problem with the Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine is that a person can’t simply unlearn and segregate knowledge when it comes to performing a job. If an employee is barred from taking similar positions with other employers, the employee has limited ways to earn a living going forward. For this reason, the Doctrine has come under a lot of scrutiny. Some courts apply the Doctrine on an extremely limited basis. According to Utilisave, the right time to apply the Doctrine is when the employee is going to use that knowledge in pretty much the same position the employee held with his former employer.