Can a Maine employer require assignment of every invention?
There is no statutory ceiling. Unlike California or Washington, Maine has no employee-invention-assignment statute — nothing that voids an assignment of a true own-time, own-resource invention — so a clause's reach is bounded only by ordinary contract law, the federal inventor-first baseline, and Maine's restrictive-covenant reasonableness line, which lets a covenant protect confidential information but never the employee's general skill and knowledge. On a touch screen, a tap shows all 2 sources in this group.
The statutory gap is verifiable. A full-text search of the official Maine Revised Statutes for the word invention returns only two hits in the entire code, both irrelevant here — a criminal-theft trade-secret definition (17-A M.R.S. § 352(1)(F)) and a property-tax assessing standard (36 M.R.S. § 328) — and the current Title 26, chapter 7 (Employment Practices) section index contains no invention or patent provision. Because the official search index self-reports currency only through late 2018, the check was corroborated against the current chapter index as of the October 2025 extraction of the official statute pages. Maine does have a substantial 2019 noncompete statute, 26 M.R.S. § 599-A; its notice regime and its bearing on trailing clauses are taken up in the questions below.
The substantive default an assignment contract operates against is the federal patent premise restated in Stanford v. Roche: absent an effective assignment, rights in an invention belong to the person who conceived it .
What bounds the clause instead of a statute is Maine's restrictive-covenant law, and that law cuts both ways. On the breadth side, the Law Court in Bernier v. Merrill Air Engineers held that a covenant may protect confidential information even when it does not qualify as a trade secret under Maine's Uniform Trade Secrets Act (10 M.R.S. §§ 1541–1548) .
On the limiting side, the doctrine that runs from Roy v. Bolduc through the modern cases forbids a covenant from capturing the employee's general skill and knowledge or unnecessarily interfering with the employee's ability to earn a living .
The practical consequence is that a Maine employer can, in principle, contract for assignment more broadly than a California or Washington employer, because no statute carves out own-time inventions from the reach of the clause. But that breadth is not unlimited. An assignment clause is still an ordinary contract term subject to contract-law defenses, and to the extent it operates as a restraint on what the employee may do — especially after employment ends — it runs into the reasonableness limits above and, if it functions as a de facto noncompete, the machinery of § 599-A.
Sources for this answer
Stanford v. Roche confirms the long-standing premise of U.S. patent law that rights in an invention belong to the inventor, the baseline against which any assignment clause is measured.
Since 1790, the patent law has operated on the premise that rights in an invention belong to the inventor.
See Bd. of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior Univ. v. Roche Molecular Sys., Inc., 563 U.S. 776 (2011).
Bernier v. Merrill Air Engineers holds that the confidential information a Maine restrictive covenant protects need not qualify as a trade secret under the Uniform Trade Secrets Act — so a contract can reach more than the statutory trade-secret floor.
The confidential knowledge or information protected by a restrictive covenant need not be limited to information that is protected as a trade secret by the UTSA.
See Bernier v. Merrill Air Engineers, 2001 ME 17, 770 A.2d 97.
Roy v. Bolduc states the root Maine rule that a restrictive agreement may protect trade secrets, confidential knowledge, and customer relationships, but may not unnecessarily interfere with the employee's livelihood or capture the general skill and knowledge acquired through the employment.
while an employer, under a proper restrictive agreement, can prevent a former employee from using his trade or business secrets, and other confidential knowledge gained in the course of the employment, and from enticing away old customers, he has no right to unnecessarily interfere with the employee’s following any trade or calling for which he is fitted and from which he may earn his livelihood and he cannot preclude him from exercising the skill and general knowledge he has acquired or increased through experience or even instructions while in the employment.
See Roy v. Bolduc, 140 Me. 103, 34 A.2d 479 (1943).
Must a Maine employer notify the employee?
Not applicable. Because Maine has no invention-assignment statute, there is no statutory carve-out to notify the employee about and no notice requirement of the kind California imposes under Labor Code § 2872 or Washington imposes under RCW 49.44.140(3). Maine does impose real pre-signing notice duties on employers — but only for noncompete agreements as 26 M.R.S. § 599-A defines them, and an ownership-allocating assignment clause is not one. On a touch screen, a tap shows all 2 sources in this group.
Maine's notice regime is worth understanding precisely because it does not reach assignment clauses. Under § 599-A(4), an employer that will condition an offer on a noncompete must say so before making the offer, and must give the employee or prospective employee a copy of the agreement at least three business days before requiring a signature .
Those duties attach only to a noncompete agreement as defined. The § 599-A(1)(B) definition reaches a contract or provision that bars the employee from working in the same or a similar line of work, or within a defined geographic area, for some period after the job ends . A clause that allocates ownership of inventions — even one trailing past termination — does not bar anyone from working, so on the statute's text it sits outside the definition, and outside the notice duty, the wage-based ban, and the delayed-effectiveness rule that travel with it.
The rest of the § 599-A package, as of the October 2025 extraction of the official statute pages, works the same way. The statute makes it a civil violation for an employer to require or permit a noncompete from an employee earning wages at or below 400 percent of the federal poverty level, and a 2023 amendment extends the same ban to employed veterinarians without an ownership interest in the practice. A covered noncompete does not take effect until the later of one year of employment or six months after signing (with a physician exception), and violations of the ban or notice provisions carry a fine of at least $5,000, enforced by the Maine Department of Labor. None of that machinery mentions invention-assignment provisions — and, importantly, none of it expressly saves them either. The statute contains no express exclusion for intellectual-property or invention-assignment clauses; assignment clauses fall outside § 599-A only because the definition is shaped around prohibitions on working . That definitional silence is why the untested de facto-noncompete recharacterization question in the holdover section below is the risk worth drafting around.
For a multistate employer the takeaway is the inverse of the notice states: a Maine employer neither has to give a California-style protected-inventions notice nor can rely on one to cure an overbroad clause. The § 599-A disclosure and three-business-day rules belong to noncompete rollouts, not to invention-assignment onboarding paperwork, and the enforceability of the assignment turns on the contract language and the general limits on restraints.
Sources for this answer
26 M.R.S. § 599-A(1)(B) defines a noncompete agreement as a contract that prohibits working in the same or a similar profession or in a specified geographic area for a period after termination — a definition an ownership-allocating invention-assignment clause does not fit, and the statute contains no express exclusion or savings clause for such clauses.
prohibits an employee or prospective employee from working in the same or a similar profession or in a specified geographic area for a certain period of time following termination of employment.
See 26 M.R.S. § 599-A(1)(B). (26 M.R.S. § 599-A)
26 M.R.S. § 599-A(4) requires an employer to disclose before an offer that a noncompete will be required and to provide a copy at least three business days before signature — notice duties that attach only to defined noncompete agreements, not to invention-assignment clauses.
An employer shall disclose prior to an offer of employment with the employer that will require the acceptance of a noncompete agreement a statement that a noncompete agreement will be required.
See 26 M.R.S. § 599-A(4). (26 M.R.S. § 599-A)
Who owns an invention by default in Maine?
The inventor, unless hired to invent. No Maine statute and no Maine Law Court decision found in our review sets a state-specific default, so the baseline is the federal patent premise that rights belong to the employee who conceived the invention, with the hired-to-invent exception and the employer's shop right operating as the traditional common-law adjustments. On a touch screen, a tap shows all 2 sources in this group.
Stanford v. Roche anchors the default. The Supreme Court treated the inventor-first premise as the baseline against which any assignment is measured, so an employer's title is derivative — it exists only if and to the extent the employee assigned it .
The principal exception is the employee hired to invent. Under United States v. Dubilier Condenser Corp., an employee engaged to make a particular invention who succeeds during the term of service must assign the resulting patent to the employer; short of that, an employee who used the employer's time, tools, and materials gives the employer at most an equitable shop right — a non-exclusive license to use the invention, not ownership of it .
Maine's own courts have said essentially nothing here. Our review found no Maine Supreme Judicial Court decision on hired-to-invent, shop rights, or employee-invention ownership. The only invention-ownership decision decided on Maine soil found in our review is Scott v. Madison Woolen Co., a 1925 decision of the federal district court in Maine applying the general federal doctrine — not Maine state law. There, a mill superintendent who devised an improved textile device on the employer's time and with its materials kept his patent, while the employer earned an implied irrevocable license to use the invention .
Because ownership starts with the inventor and Maine has no statute or state-court doctrine filling the gap, the dependable path for an employer is a written present-assignment (hereby assigns) clause that transfers legal title automatically on conception, rather than a future promise to assign that leaves the employer with a mere equitable claim.
Sources for this answer
Stanford v. Roche confirms that absent an effective assignment, rights in an invention belong to the inventor — the default that governs in Maine because no state statute or decision displaces it.
Since 1790, the patent law has operated on the premise that rights in an invention belong to the inventor.
See Bd. of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior Univ. v. Roche Molecular Sys., Inc., 563 U.S. 776 (2011).
United States v. Dubilier Condenser Corp. holds that an employee hired to make an invention who succeeds during the term of service is bound to assign the resulting patent to the employer — the hired-to-invent exception to the inventor-first default.
One employed to make an invention, who succeeds, during his term of service, in accomplishing that task, is bound to assign to his employer any patent obtained.
See United States v. Dubilier Condenser Corp., 289 U.S. 178 (1933).
Scott v. Madison Woolen Co., a 1925 federal district court decision from Maine applying the general federal doctrine, let the employee-inventor keep his patent while finding the employer had earned an implied irrevocable license (shop right) from the employee's use of the employer's time and materials.
the facts stated amply warrant the finding of an implied irrevocable license or shop right, and that it would be inequitable to grant an injunction.
See Scott v. Madison Woolen Co., 3 F.2d 331 (D. Me. 1925).
Are trailing-assignment (holdover) clauses enforceable in Maine?
Probably enforceable only to the extent reasonable. No Maine decision found in our review has adjudicated a trailing invention-assignment clause, and no statute caps its duration. But Maine would not approach one on a blank slate. The Law Court applies its restrictive-covenant reasonableness framework beyond noncompetes, and in doing so it has favorably cited the leading holdover-agreement case, so a Maine court asked to enforce a trailing clause would most likely test it for reasonableness rather than apply any invention-specific rule. On a touch screen, a tap shows all 2 sources in this group.
Maine's covenant-reasonableness line is old and settled. As restated in Chapman & Drake v. Harrington , quoting Lord v. Lord , such covenants are disfavored and enforceable only within reasonable bounds.
The framework is not confined to noncompetes. In Bernier v. Merrill Air Engineers, the Law Court applied it to a nondisclosure covenant — an adjacent IP-protective covenant type — and treated reasonableness as the governing legal test .
The same passage of Bernier supplies the closest thing Maine has to holdover authority. In describing the interests a covenant may protect, the Law Court cited Ingersoll-Rand Co. v. Ciavatta, 542 A.2d 879 (N.J. 1988) — the New Jersey Supreme Court's leading trailing-invention-assignment decision — with a parenthetical expressly describing that case as construing a holdover agreement and endorsing the employer interests such agreements can serve .
Two caveats keep this a prediction rather than a holding. Bernier is a nondisclosure case, and its citation of Ingersoll-Rand is protectable-interest dicta — no Maine decision found in our review has enforced, trimmed, or struck a holdover invention-assignment clause, and no Maine authority blesses any particular holdover duration. And the statutory overlay points the same way without resolving it: § 599-A(2) declares noncompete agreements contrary to public policy and enforceable only to the extent reasonable and no broader than necessary to protect the employer's trade secrets, other confidential information, or goodwill — a close codification of the Lord and Chapman & Drake formula — so even a trailing clause recharacterized as a noncompete would land back on reasonableness, though the statute also bars noncompetes for some categories of employees , and an employer that violates that bar may be fined not less than $5,000 .
Consideration is one point Maine's covenant cases have settled in the employer's favor for midstream rollouts. In Brignull v. Albert, continued employment supported a restrictive covenant signed mid-employment — a rule that would presumably carry over to an invention-assignment agreement rolled out to existing employees, though Brignull itself involved a noncompetition covenant . Note that for true noncompetes, § 599-A(5) now delays effectiveness until the later of one year of employment or six months after signing — a timing rule an assignment clause outside the definition does not face.
Sources for this answer
Chapman & Drake v. Harrington restates Maine's governing formula, quoting Lord v. Lord, that restrictive covenants are contrary to public policy and enforceable only to the extent they are reasonable and sweep no wider than necessary to protect the business interests in issue.
are contrary to public policy and will be enforced only to the extent that they are reasonable and sweep no wider than necessary to protect the business interests in issue.
See Chapman & Drake v. Harrington, 545 A.2d 645 (Me. 1988) (quoting Lord v. Lord, 454 A.2d 830, 834 (Me. 1983)).
Lord v. Lord states Maine's rule that non-competition agreements are contrary to public policy and are enforced only to the extent they are reasonable and sweep no wider than necessary to protect the business interests in issue, the formula Chapman & Drake later quoted.
We have long recognized that non-competition agreements are contrary to public policy and will be enforced only to the extent that they are reasonable and sweep no wider than necessary to protect the business interests in issue.
See Lord v. Lord, 454 A.2d 830, 834 (Me. 1983).
Bernier v. Merrill Air Engineers applies Maine's covenant-reasonableness framework beyond noncompetes to a nondisclosure covenant and holds that reasonableness is a question of law — the framework a trailing invention-assignment clause would most likely face.
To be enforceable, however, restrictive covenants must be reasonable. The reasonableness of a restrictive covenant is a question of law.
See Bernier v. Merrill Air Engineers, 2001 ME 17, 770 A.2d 97.
Bernier v. Merrill Air Engineers decided the reasonableness of a nondisclosure clause in an employment contract, not an invention-assignment or holdover clause.
The nondisclosure clause in the Bernier-Merrill employment contract is reasonable.
See Bernier v. Merrill Air Engineers, 2001 ME 17, 770 A.2d 97.
Bernier v. Merrill Air Engineers favorably cites Ingersoll-Rand Co. v. Ciavatta, the leading holdover invention-assignment case, with a parenthetical expressly describing it as construing a holdover agreement — the closest the Maine Law Court has come to addressing trailing assignment clauses, though as protectable-interest dicta in a nondisclosure case.
(construing a holdover agreement and recognizing that “employers may have legitimate interests in protecting information that is not a trade secret or proprietary information, but highly specialized, current information not generally known in the industry, created and stimulated by the research environment furnished by the employer, to which the employee has been ‘exposed’ and ‘enriched’ solely due to his employment”).
See Bernier v. Merrill Air Engineers, 2001 ME 17, 770 A.2d 97 (citing Ingersoll-Rand Co. v. Ciavatta, 110 N.J. 609, 542 A.2d 879, 894 (1988)).
Ingersoll-Rand Co. v. Ciavatta, the New Jersey holdover decision Bernier cited, holds that a post-employment holdover agreement is enforceable only when reasonable; it is persuasive, not Maine, authority.
In sum, we conclude that holdover agreements are enforceable when reasonable, and that in determining if the post-termination restriction is reasonable, we will apply the three-prong test of Solari/Whitmyer.
See Ingersoll-Rand Co. v. Ciavatta, 110 N.J. 609 (1988).
26 M.R.S. § 599-A(2) codifies Maine's common-law formula — noncompete agreements are contrary to public policy and enforceable only to the extent reasonable and no broader than necessary to protect legitimate business interests — so a trailing clause recharacterized as a noncompete would face the same reasonableness standard plus the statute's ban and penalty machinery.
Noncompete agreements are contrary to public policy and are enforceable only to the extent that they are reasonable and are no broader than necessary to protect one or more of the following legitimate business interests of the employer
See 26 M.R.S. § 599-A(2). (26 M.R.S. § 599-A)
26 M.R.S. § 599-A(2) limits the legitimate business interests a noncompete agreement may protect to the employer's trade secrets, its confidential information that does not qualify as a trade secret, and its goodwill.
Noncompete agreements are contrary to public policy and are enforceable only to the extent that they are reasonable and are no broader than necessary to protect one or more of the following legitimate business interests of the employer: A. The employer's trade secrets, as defined in Title 10, section 1542, subsection 4; [PL 2019, c. 513, §1 (NEW).] B. The employer's confidential information that does not qualify as a trade secret; or [PL 2019, c. 513, §1 (NEW).] C. The employer's goodwill.
See 26 M.R.S. § 599-A(2). (26 M.R.S. § 599-A)
26 M.R.S. § 599-A(3) bars an employer from requiring or permitting a noncompete agreement with certain categories of employees; the categories quoted here are employees earning wages at or below 400% of the federal poverty level and licensed veterinarians employed in a veterinary facility in which they have no ownership interest.
Notwithstanding subsection 2, an employer may not require or permit an employee to enter into a noncompete agreement with the employer if: A. The employee is earning wages at or below 400% of the federal poverty level; or [PL 2023, c. 118, §1 (NEW).] B. The employee is a veterinarian licensed under Title 32, chapter 71‑A and is employed in a veterinary facility in which the employee does not have an ownership interest.
See 26 M.R.S. § 599-A(3). (26 M.R.S. § 599-A)
26 M.R.S. § 599-A(6) makes it a civil violation, with a fine of not less than $5,000, for an employer to violate subsection 3 (which bars noncompete agreements for covered workers) or subsection 4 (the disclosure and notice rules).
An employer that violates subsection 3 or 4 commits a civil violation for which a fine of not less than $5,000 may be adjudged.
See 26 M.R.S. § 599-A(6). (26 M.R.S. § 599-A)
Brignull v. Albert holds that continued employment constitutes consideration supporting a restrictive covenant signed mid-employment, so a Maine invention-assignment agreement rolled out to existing employees does not fail for lack of fresh consideration.
Thus Albert’s continued employment by Brignull during a three-year period constitutes consideration to support the noncompetition agreement.
See Brignull v. Albert, 666 A.2d 82 (Me. 1995).
Chapman & Drake v. Harrington assessed a restrictive covenant only as the employer sought to apply it, not on its plain terms — Maine's as-applied softening device; no Law Court decision found in our review adopts or rejects reformation of a facially overbroad covenant.
we assess that agreement only as Chapman & Drake has sought to apply it and not as it might have been enforced on its plain terms.
See Chapman & Drake v. Harrington, 545 A.2d 645 (Me. 1988).
Roy v. Bolduc forbids a restrictive agreement from capturing the employee's general skill and knowledge or unnecessarily interfering with the employee's livelihood — the limit an overbroad trailing assignment would collide with in Maine.
while an employer, under a proper restrictive agreement, can prevent a former employee from using his trade or business secrets, and other confidential knowledge gained in the course of the employment, and from enticing away old customers, he has no right to unnecessarily interfere with the employee’s following any trade or calling for which he is fitted and from which he may earn his livelihood and he cannot preclude him from exercising the skill and general knowledge he has acquired or increased through experience or even instructions while in the employment.
See Roy v. Bolduc, 140 Me. 103, 34 A.2d 479 (1943).
The untested risk in Maine is recharacterization. A trailing assignment broad enough to make continued work in the field pointless — for example, one that hands the ex-employer every invention in the profession for years after departure — functions like a restraint on working, and 26 M.R.S. § 599-A contains no express exclusion for invention-assignment provisions that would prevent a court from treating such a clause as a noncompete agreement under the statutory definition. Recharacterization would drag in machinery the clause was never drafted to satisfy — the statutory public-policy declaration and reasonableness cap, the pre-offer disclosure and three-business-day notice duties, the delayed-effectiveness rule, the ban for employees at or below 400 percent of the federal poverty level and for employed veterinarians, and a civil fine of at least $5,000 . Draft trailing assignments narrow, short, and tied to the employer's trade secrets and confidential information rather than to the employee's field of work, because Maine's covenant doctrine forbids capturing general skill and knowledge , and no Maine decision found in our review endorses reformation of an overbroad covenant — the Law Court has softened overbreadth only by assessing an agreement as applied, which offers no help to an employer seeking to enforce a facially overbroad clause .
What does federal law require a confidentiality and invention assignment agreement in Maine to say about whistleblowers and pay?
An employee confidentiality, non-compete, or invention assignment agreement signed or updated now that governs trade secrets or other confidential information must give the Defend Trade Secrets Act whistleblower-immunity notice, and for employees the National Labor Relations Act covers, Section 7 of that Act protects concerted activity, including joining together over pay and working conditions, that a broad confidentiality clause can restrict. The employer may satisfy the notice duty by cross-referencing a qualifying policy document provided to the employee, but an employer that omits the notice may not be awarded exemplary damages or attorney fees under the Defend Trade Secrets Act in an action against an employee who was not given notice.
The notice describes a federal immunity: an individual cannot be held liable under federal or state trade-secret law for disclosing a trade secret in confidence to a government official or an attorney solely to report or investigate a suspected violation of law, or in a court filing made under seal. For an agreement signed or updated now, the duty to give that notice reaches any agreement with an employee that governs trade secrets or other confidential information, whatever else the agreement does.
Section 7 gives employees the National Labor Relations Act covers a statutory right to engage in concerted activity for mutual aid or protection, including joining together to improve pay and working conditions. For employees the Act covers, the Board's work-rule standard adopted in 2023 makes a rule presumptively unlawful if it has a reasonable tendency to chill employees from exercising their Section 7 rights; an employer can rebut that presumption only by showing a legitimate and substantial business interest it cannot serve with a more narrowly tailored rule. The 2023 standard may change, but the Section 7 right it enforces is statutory. State law may add its own requirements for the same clauses.
A form carried over without the immunity notice, or a cross-reference to a reporting policy the employee never received, leaves the confidentiality clause without a valid notice, so the Act's exemplary damages and attorney fees are unavailable against that employee. A Confidential Information definition that sweeps in pay and working conditions with no carve-out exposes the employer to an unfair-labor-practice finding for employees the Act covers.
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An individual is immune from criminal and civil liability under federal and state trade-secret law for disclosing a trade secret in confidence to a government official or an attorney solely to report or investigate a suspected violation of law, or in a court filing made under seal.
An individual shall not be held criminally or civilly liable under any Federal or State trade secret law for the disclosure of a trade secret that— (A) is made— (i) in confidence to a Federal, State, or local government official, either directly or indirectly, or to an attorney; and (ii) solely for the purpose of reporting or investigating a suspected violation of law; or (B) is made in a complaint or other document filed in a lawsuit or other proceeding, if such filing is made under seal.
See 18 U.S.C. § 1833(b)(1).
An employer must give notice of the trade-secret whistleblower immunity in any contract or agreement with an employee that governs the use of a trade secret or other confidential information.
An employer shall provide notice of the immunity set forth in this subsection in any contract or agreement with an employee that governs the use of a trade secret or other confidential information.
See 18 U.S.C. § 1833(b)(3)(A).
An employer complies with the notice requirement by cross-referencing a policy document, provided to the employee, that sets out the employer's reporting policy for a suspected violation of law.
An employer shall be considered to be in compliance with the notice requirement in subparagraph (A) if the employer provides a cross-reference to a policy document provided to the employee that sets forth the employer's reporting policy for a suspected violation of law.
See 18 U.S.C. § 1833(b)(3)(B).
An employer that does not give the required notice may not be awarded exemplary damages or attorney fees in a trade-secret action against an employee who did not receive it.
If an employer does not comply with the notice requirement in subparagraph (A), the employer may not be awarded exemplary damages or attorney fees under subparagraph (C) or (D) of section 1836(b)(3) in an action against an employee to whom notice was not provided.
See 18 U.S.C. § 1833(b)(3)(C).
Section 7 gives employees the right to engage in concerted activities for mutual aid or protection, the statutory basis for keeping discussion of pay and working conditions outside confidentiality restrictions.
Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, and shall also have the right to refrain from any or all of such activities except to the extent that such right may be affected by an agreement requiring membership in a labor organization as a condition of employment as authorized in section 158(a)(3) of this title.
See 29 U.S.C. § 157 (NLRA § 7).
The National Labor Relations Board protects the right of private-sector employees, with or without a union, to join together to improve wages, benefits, and working conditions.
Established in 1935, the National Labor Relations Board is an independent federal agency that protects employees from unfair labor practices and protects the right of private sector employees to join together, with or without a union, to improve wages, benefits and working conditions.
See NLRB Office of Public Affairs, news release of Feb. 21, 2023 (agency mission statement).
Under the work-rule standard the Board adopted in 2023, a rule with a reasonable tendency to chill employees from exercising their Section 7 rights is presumptively unlawful unless the employer proves a legitimate and substantial business interest it cannot advance with a more narrowly tailored rule.
Under the new standard adopted in Stericycle, the General Counsel must prove that a challenged rule has a reasonable tendency to chill employees from exercising their rights. If the General Counsel does so, then the rule is presumptively unlawful. However, the employer may rebut the presumption by proving that the rule advances a legitimate and substantial business interest and that the employer is unable to advance that interest with a more narrowly tailored rule.
See Stericycle, Inc., 372 NLRB No. 113 (2023); NLRB Office of Public Affairs, Board Adopts New Standard for Assessing Lawfulness of Work Rules (Aug. 2, 2023).