The Uber-Waymo Lawsuit: It Should Be Easy to Poach Talent, But Not IP

How can we allow talent to move within an industry and flourish, while protecting company’s secrets? Distinguishing between trade secrets and general skill or know-how common to a profession is not always easy. In some cases, the final answer may well be found in a courtroom, as it was with the complicated Google-Uber dispute over engineer Anthony Levandowski and whether he was sharing inside information about Google’s self-driving car arm, Waymo, when he took a job at Uber. Still, companies should not be chilled from hiring their competitor’s best talent. They can ultimately avoid the risk of litigation by making it clear that those hired cannot bring along technology or data which were obtained or learned from their previous employer.