Medical Device Link.

Originally Published MX May/June 2005

GOVERNMENTAL & LEGAL AFFAIRS

A human resources department representative should meet with each new medtech company employee within five working days of the onset of their employment to establish corporate ground rules regarding trade secrets. The objective of the meeting is to protect the company against both potentially damaging disclosure of its own trade secrets and exposure to a legal dispute with a former employer of the new employee.

The interview should proceed as follows, incorporating all enumerated elements.

1. Explain the company's trade secret policy and provide the employee with a copy of the policy.
2. Ask the employee whether he or she retained any information, documents, or physical objects, including computer programs, manuals, or design documentation, from any of his or her prior employers after leaving their employ, and whether he or she signed a confidentiality agreement with any prior employer.
3. Ask the employee the nature and subject matter of the work performed for prior employers. (Important: Instruct the employee not to reveal any trade secrets or confidential information of any prior employer when answering this question.)
4. Instruct the employee that he or she may not use or bring into the company's facilities or computers, by any means, any information, documents, or physical objects learned or obtained from any prior employer or considered to be proprietary by any other person.
5. Inform the employee that, under certain circumstances, the company may need to contact the employee's former employer or employers regarding the scope of the employee's obligations to those former employers or regarding the employee's answers or comments in response to items 1-4 of this interview procedure.
6. Ask the employee whether he or she understands what was discussed in steps 1-5.
7. Prepare a report, simultaneously with the meeting, documenting the employee's interview answers and comments.

Copyright ©2005 MX