Required sign a Nondisclosure Agreement before resignation

This is true. And the translation standards are questionable. :2cents:

That’s what I think, too. Whenever I’ve signed NDAs in the past, whether in academia or otherwise, it’s been prior to starting work alongside the employment contract etc.

I wouldn’t personally sign anything like that at the end of employment (even more so when I didn’t understand it), although that might involve burning some bridges. Some amount of knowledge transfer is unavoidable when transferring from academia to industry or within academia (and that’s the point, of course), and I doubt that if the university is bringing this up now because they forgot earlier it will be to your advantage.

So I would fight this a bit and be very reluctant to sign, since signing the NDA at this point would presumably restrict what you can do at the new company to some degree or another (which seems to be the point). Obviously any technology you developed during the postdoc should stay the property of the university anyway, but I don’t see the advantage to you to signing now. But I’m stubborn. If I was eventually forced to sign, I would first insist on making sure I understood very well what I’m signing and its implications.

I’m not sure what they can realistically do if you refuse to sign, as it probably doesn’t benefit them either to try to force a disgruntled employee to stick around against their will.

Not a lawyer.

I am not quite sure this Agreement is an official university document or not, but I have searched and checked from many other Universities, they all have similar document, I signed one last year when I was working here. But When I move to industry, it may effect my future work, so I need be more careful.
Actually, in my original contract, there is an article mentioning that: (十二)參與計畫作業所蒐集資料及研究所得成果,非經計畫主持人同意,不得擅自利用或公開。如涉及不法利益,則依法處理。“The data collected and research results obtained by participating in the project operation shall not be used or disclosed without the permission”
Thus, I totally agree that I will not disclosure, share, or use any data/results developed in the University.
However, require signing an extra Agreement that seems very uncomon; especially, when they add the article 17 mentioning that I must tell them which company I will join. Finally, I have just asked another guy, who just left oneweek a go, he didnt need to sign the similar document.

They already have some protection anyway.

https://law.moj.gov.tw/ENG/LawClass/LawAll.aspx?pcode=J0080028

Possibly, but it depends. (Why are you asking for early contract termination? What does the contract say about early termination? Etc…)


It does seem excessive, but there’s a saving clause (Art. 14) that says even if part of the agreement turns out to be illegal, the rest remains valid.

an example of agreement is there.