In today’s competitive global marketplace, critical to the success of your business is the ability to protect and retain human resources, intellectual property, trade secrets, proprietary information, and client relationships.
  
Unfortunately, employee mobility and disloyalty have become more commonplace.  Advances in technology have made it easy for employees to obtain and misappropriate their employer’s confidential information and trade secrets, whether to compete with the employer in a new business or on behalf of a competitor.  It is vital for employers to have policies, procedures and agreements in place that limit an employee’s ability to do so. 

Employers frequently seek to protect their confidential information by requiring new hires to sign “non-compete” agreements, just in case the new relationship sours and the employee leaves to work for a competitor.  The practice that has long been applied to technical and professional employees has grown to encompass less-specialized employees as well.  However, the issues are complex, and in some instances under Pennsylvania law, non-compete clauses may be unenforceable.