In the first of the three cases, HP was so persistent in the litigation and so threatening, that the individual, who had retired from HP months before even talking to Cisco, withdrew. There seemed to be little concern with the stress that a big company turning its legal guns on an individual can cause. In another case, an employee who worked in HP’s financial services group was sued to block her from working in Cisco’s customer finance group, even though there was no argument whatsoever that relevant intellectual property at stake. She persisted and HP relented. In the most recent case, just last week, the employee, who’d given HP over two decades of loyal service, had moved to California before starting work at Cisco. He asked a California court to declare that he was protected by California law and that HP could therefore not enforce its non-compete. A court hearing was scheduled in California, we notified HP and HP retained counsel. Cisco also reached out to senior legal staff at HP to try lay out some voluntary steps to avoid further litigation and to give further reassurance that the employee wouldn’t even inadvertently leverage any HP confidential information.

HP’s reply was to file an action in Texas against the employee and schedule an “emergency” hearing to try to enjoin the employ from working with Cisco, seeking to have a judge issue the injunction with no notice and no opportunity for the employee to be represented. Fortunately, an eagle-eyed Texas lawyer working for the employee saw the filing appear on line and showed up in court. Given that the matter was already in front of a California court, with HP fully represented, in a hearing scheduled for two hours later, the judge in Texas was not impressed by HP’s effort to get her to act without a hearing. She refused to proceed. And the California judge issued an order allowing the employee to begin his new career at Cisco.

Cisco’s promise to those looking to work in the networking industry is that no matter which of the fifty states you live in and work for Cisco, if you come to work for us we will apply California’s rule in favor of employee mobility nationwide. We know that employee retention is a matter of fair compensation and career opportunity, not litigation. And we challenge HP, with new leadership deeply steeped in Silicon Valley’s environment of mobility and opportunity, to step up and support employee freedom and stop suing employees just for leaving.