Nearly every high-flying high-tech company formed in the last 30 years has been formed by a group of people who dreamed up the idea for it while they were on the payroll of a firm that would soon be a competitor, so without the tendency of engineers to turn their dreams of running their own show into reality, most of the innovations of the computer and microelectronics industries would likely never have happened – but if companies didn’t routinely sue their departing employees in a knee-jerk reaction, there’d be nothing for corporate lawyers to do: latest to try to shut the stable door after the horses have set up camp on the other side of town – state actually – is Mentor Graphics Corp, Beaverton, Oregon, which is going after EDA Systems Inc of California and four of its former employees to enjoin them from sharing and using confidential information to the benefit of EDA; the suit also seeks damages estimated of $18m and injunctions against EDA from hiring the former Mentor Graphics staff.
