For New York employers, fall has brought with it more than just cooler temperatures, thanks to a wave of activity from Governor Kathy Hochul’s desk (after a busy legislative summer). Below, we highlight six significant employment bills that the Governor recently signed into law, as well as key pieces of legislation that continue to await her review.
New York joined the growing list of states providing employees with stronger intellectual property protections when S 5640 took effect on September 15, 2023. As we previously reported, the new law generally makes unenforceable any provision in an employment agreement that requires an employee to assign to the employer (or offer to assign) an invention that the employee develops on their own time and without the employer’s equipment, supplies, facilities, or trade secret information. There are, however, two significant exemptions under the law, whereby inventions that would otherwise not be assignable (i.e., are created on the employee’s own time and without the employer’s tools, etc.) may still nonetheless be assigned: (i) if, at the time of conception or reduction to practice, the invention relates to the employer’s business, actual research or development, or anticipated research or development, or (ii) if the invention results from work that the employee performs for the employer.
As hostility from state legislators and federal agencies toward noncompete...
Congress leaders Harshwardhan Sapkal and Nana Patole, Nationalist Congress Party (SP) legislator Rohit Pawar, and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader Priyanka Chaturvedi said PM Modi's sp...