Research has always been a passion of mine. This interest was born watching my father work on his PhD. This is where inquiring minds really want to know. If anyone has ever been in a meeting with me they know and are prepared for 101 questions. Sometimes they cannot be answered then or in the near future. This can and often does lead to areas that need further investigation. This is one of the many things I love about this job.
At Ultra Select Medical our future goals are to have a department dedicated to just R and D. In order to make that happen, it takes a great deal of work, paperwork and constantly reminding others that your company is here and open for business. This will be in different areas of the ultrasound world. It can be our own proprietary inventions, techniques for treating patients, developing protocols, beta testing other company’s products or fine tuning existing products.
The first thing to understand is the process of nondisclosure agreements and sometimes they go by others names. The concept here is that good fences make good neighbors. An NDA is designed to protect knowledge, information and other confidential issues. They cover a specified span of time. The longest one I have ever signed is twenty five years. We take these very seriously. If you violate any aspect of these agreements the legal wrangling will be enough to make you want to run to the farthest desert island and stay there.
The second thing to know about in advance is the non-compete agreement. Generally this is between an employer and employee. However it can be where one business perceives that another business may have the ability to produce or recreate the same product faster or better and they are working together. I have been a part of the second type of non-compete both in and outside of medicine. These also cover a specified amount of time. Fair and balanced are the two things you need to look for here. If the agreement heavily favors one entity over the other then it should be re-evaluated for fairness.
There are many types of these agreements. If you are an IT, programming, development specialist and now, sonographer, these are two documents you should expect to encounter. This blog is never intended to be legal advice. However, it is advisable to have both agreements reviewed by an attorney. In future blogs if we write that we can say no more, then these are the reasons why.