Medical Device Link.

Originally Published MX May/June 2005

GOVERNMENTAL & LEGAL AFFAIRS

No employee with access to a medtech company's trade secrets should depart the company without being met by a representative of the human resources department, ideally within the last five working days before employment ends. In an interview similar to that conducted when the employee arrived at the company, the HR officer again intends to protect the secrecy of corporate information by discouraging the departing employee from retaining or using proprietary information in a place of future employment.

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

1. Inform the employee that various obligations of his or her employment survive the termination of employment, and that the employee must continue to comply with such obligations, such as trade secret obligations, set forth in the employment agreement.
2. Ask the employee if he or she plans to retain any information, documents, or physical objects, including files, computer programs, manuals, or design documentation, after leaving the company’s employ. If the answer is yes, the company representative should ask the employee to identify all such information, documents, and physical objects, and should instruct the employee not to take any items that the company views as secret or otherwise proprietary.
3. Ask the employee the nature and subject matter of the work expected to be performed for his or her next employer. (Important: Instruct the employee not to reveal any trade secrets or confidential information belonging to his or her next employer when answering this question.)
4. Instruct the employee that he or she may not use or bring into any future employer's facilities or computers, by any means, any information, documents, or physical objects learned or obtained from the company or considered to be proprietary by any other person to which the company has any legal obligations.
5. Inform the employee that the company may take legal action against the employee and/or his or her future employers, without prior notice, for using or bringing into any future employer's facilities or computers, by any means, any specific information, documents, or physical objects learned or obtained from the company or considered to be proprietary by any other person to which the company has any legal obligations.
6. Inform the employee that, under certain circumstances, the company may need to advise the employee's next employer of the employee's obligations under his or her employment agreement, and that he or she may show that employment agreement to the new employer.
7. Ask the employee whether he or she understands everything discussed in steps 1-6 of the interview.
8. Prepare a report, simultaneously with the meeting, documenting the employee's interview answers and comments.

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