withstanding, motorola is whining about having a c*** line up of phones and wanting to blame someone else?a bit sad if a single person can be blamed for all their woes and worries...

Here's how we did it at Motorola, I'd suggest we do everything the exact opposite.

"due to a breach of written contract with Genger, stating that Fenger is not to be employed by a competing company"

Wait a minute, wasn't Moto recently claiming that the iPhone was not competition? So now they're admitting that it is???

"..the company hopes to recover over $1 millon in stock-option grants..."

Hmm. If the guy actually did contribute significantly to the iPhone's success, I bet Apple could make the recovery of $1million in stock options seem relatively painless with, oh, I don't know, some grants of some stock or other that's not currently tanking ;-)

"In addition to damages (which Motorola is seeking due to a breach of written contract with Genger, stating that Fenger is not to be employed by a competing company for at least two years from March 31st) the company hopes to recover over $1 millon in stock-option grants."

Genger?

I wonder how enforceable these contracts are. Banning someone from working for a competitor for 2 years is pretty draconian, especially if your specialty is in one particular sector, like telecoms.

Very enforceable. It's a CONTRACT. You sign it. You agree to the terms. That's the whole point of a contract.

I'm sure if you had a contract with a company which said "We'll pay you $1 million a year for 5 years", and then a couple of years later they came and said "Man, those terms seem draconian, we're not paying you anymore", you'd be suing them.

The big question, of course, is "How come they didn't sue his a** the moment he was announced joining the iPhone team???"

Actually, non-competes are notoriously hard to enforce, and, technically, Apple wasn't a competitor until the iPhone was launched, so he wasn't working for a competitor for some time. It's also likely that he had too little time to impact the iPhone enough to hurt Moto. Moto likely did more on its own to hurt itself than Apple or the iPhone did. Let's also not forget that Apple was working with Moto for some time on the c*** ROKR E1, so Moto likely spilled enough of its own beans for Apple to understand what it needed to do to succeed.

Actually, non-competes are notoriously hard to enforce, and, technically, Apple wasn't a competitor until the iPhone was launched, so he wasn't working for a competitor for some time.

Read the article. He joined in March. This year. Thus Apple WAS a competitor (and had been for over a year - Apple became a competitor the second they officially announced the iPhone).

Hey, non-lawyers, I wouldn't even think of giving legal advice on a message board, but I can tell you that bfalchuk is much more accurate than testudo as far as this particular topic is concerned...

Non-compete clauses are not notoriously hard to enforce. You have no clue what you are talking about. If reasonable, they are always enforced. Draconian? It's draconian to want to stop someone from working for a competitor after working for you and acquiring mass amounts of confidential information?

Generally, if a non-compete clause is reasonable (as in having reasonable terms, i.e. 4 years and not eternity, or within a certain jurisdiction) they will be enforced.

You fan boys love to pretend you know what you're talking about.