While China and India are often accused of having lax labor standards, non-competes are one area where their laws are stronger than in Massachusetts. Perhaps we should consider their laws as a model for Massachusetts:
Re China, from http://www.chinalawblog.com/2010/01/employee_noncompete_agreements.html “Employers simply need to face the fact that non-competition agreements have very limited utility under Chinese law. The better approach is to deal with the whole issue under the terms of a trade secrecy agreement.”
From http://www.pepperlaw.com/publications_update.aspx?ArticleKey=1714 : “…Indian courts have consistently refused to enforce post-termination non-compete clauses in employment contracts, viewing them as “restraint of trade” impermissible under Section 27 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872 (the Act), and as void and against public policy.”
(Please pardon the repeat post, but I thought the earlier post may have been overlooked as a late post on an earlier thread.)
Kevin, thank you for rolling this thought forward — the international comparison is helpful.