Hacker News | For what it's worth, it's true that there are landmined NDA's that are really IP...

Hacker News

2 points by qeorge 303 days ago | link | parent

For what it's worth, it's true that there are landmined NDA's that are really IP agreements in sheep's clothing, and yeah you shouldn't sign those --- but for the most part, a standard NDA isn't going to limit what you can work on in the future; it's just going to keep you from disclosing anything sensitive and client-specific you learn at the client.

That's what I was trying to say, but you put it much more succinctly. The main friction points we encounter involve what exactly is "client specific", as everyone likes to think their ideas are unique, which is rarely the case.

3 points by tptacek 303 days ago | link

I just looked at 4 NDAs we recently handled from megacorps, and all of them were very clear that the NDA covered:

* valuable or sensitive information

* that was disclosed by the client to the vendor

* that hadn't been publicly disclosed by anyone

* and hadn't been known to the vendor prior to the NDA

* and hadn't been disclosed to the vendor by someone else sans-NDA

That seems to me like extraordinary care not to be overbroad. These were megacorp boilerplate MNDA's, not something we had to negotiate.

Three of these NDA's, from totally different megacorps, used literally identical language to define "Confidential Information".

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1 point by qeorge 303 days ago | link

That's a great list, and very similar to the language in our standard NDA. I have no problem signing an NDA with those terms.

We've never worked with a megacorp, so its nice to know they're handling this in a more professional manner than some of the folks I've encountered. An NDA is certainly a stupid thing to derail a business deal.

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