Is a job offer letter sent and accepted by email, legally binding? TL;DR: You could also jump to the last paragraph. I was interviewed and selected by a software startup in India. Saturday was not a working day for them, but yet their tech VP, product manager and CEO came on Saturday at their new office and interviewed me. The interview process was very mature, they were very polite and even after the interview when I did a background check of the company and didn't find proof of registration of the company on the Ministry of Corporate Affairs website, they offered me proof of registration of the company, including the Corporate Identification Number. The company was called X Pvt.Ltd. (this is the company that is registered). They were later called Y and now they are named Z. They are funded by a reputed company named G, and G's website shows that they are funding company Y. My offer letter mentions the company name as Z (*) and at the bottom of the letter, is the explanation of the asterisk, which goes like X Pvt.Ltd. d/b/a Z. The d/b/a, I understand is "Doing Business As". I also verified the registrations on this website. The bottom of the offer letter mentions the CEO's name and the letter (pdf format) has been emailed to me by the tech VP via the company Z's email domain name. The offer letter says "Therefore, please confirm your acceptance of terms contained herein by signing and returning a duplicate copy of this letter", so when I spoke to the VP on phone about signatures, he said I was welcome to come to their office on Monday and he'd keep a copy of the letter signed by the CEO, ready for me. He also mentioned that they usually don't follow the procedure of having signatures on the offer letter for new joinee's, and assured me that they trust me and they would honour the offer letter even if it was not signed. Considering that the current company I work for (a very reputed one), had also sent me an offer letter by email when I was a campus recruit, and they had not even expected me to reply with a "yes", and instead just wanted me to send across the document proof they required, can I assume it is safe to just send an email to the startup saying that I accept the offer letter, and then resign from my current job? The notice period is 1.5 months. Is it safe and legally binding to do this via email?
Yes. The formation of a contract requires (among other things) that the parties intend to be legally bound. Their sending the offer from a corporate email address shows this. You replying in the same way shows your intention. Signatures are optional. Consider, verbal contracts are binding; how do you sign those?
No, this is not an acknowledgement of guilt or liability. It offers a &quot;discount&quot; some sort of reduction in price. This could be an offer of settlement without admission of liability, or even just advertising for repeat business (unlikely as that may seem). Without the rest of the communication, there is no way to tell. Unless there are specific admissions, this statement alone is not likely to have much significance in such a case. Edit: There is still not enough context to tell exactly what the sender of this communication wanted to accomplish with the offer of the discount, but since the OP now says &quot;the party does not take the responsibility&quot; this is not an admission of guilt, whatever else it is. It sounds like some sort of backdoor form of settlement offer without admission, but that is far from clear to me. My original answer is not significantly hanged here.
After a buyout, can a company legally continue to use old testimonials? Yes. What you describe would not suffice for a finding of false and misleading practices. For purposes of pricing the acquisition, it is most likely that company's A prestige was factored in. After all, as Kaspersky Lab, Inc. v. US Dept. of Homeland Sec., 909 F.3d 446, 461 (2018) points out, &quot;reputation is an asset that companies cultivate, manage, and monetize&quot;. As company A has --or could have-- monetized its reputation via the acquisition price, it would be inconsistent to preclude company B from using an asset for which it paid.
If an offer is accepted, you have a contract Oral contracts are binding for most transactions. See What is a contract and what is required for them to be valid? However, from the circumstances, it’s not clear that there was an offer subject to acceptance. Had the wages been agreed? The hours of work? The annual leave? The sick leave? If these were undetermined then there is no contract.
History of the case Javascript is a trademark of Oracle since 1996/1999. Anything that can cause confusion of origin or endorsement is thus infringing on the trademark of Oracle. A company explicitly named after a product of another implies to be endorsed, so Oracle sued that company under S69(1) of the Companies Act 2006 in November 2019. The company did not respond to any level of the lawsuit, which meant they did not contest any arguments - the even refused to take the mail1. It was their duty to show, that they fulfilled one of the provisions in Section 69(4), which could grandfather their name. As a result, the complaint was upheld as a matter of law (last sentence of S69(4)), Section 69(5) did not come up to the test as there was no response. The tribunal ordered the Company to need to rename and pay the fees. 1 - Regarding the keywords used by Royal Mail: &quot;Not called for&quot; is applied to mails that would not fit into a letterbox and nobody was available to sign for them. A postcard to get redelivery arranged or pick it up at the post station is deposited instead. If not called for within a specified timeframe, it is returned to the sender. &quot;refused&quot; is applied to mail that is explicitly denied at the door by the receiver and then returned to the sender. Next steps: GET A LAWYER! Whether this situation is salvageable is very much dependant on the specifics we don't know. It is a question for the lawyer employed by the respondent as the respondent needs proper legal advice from a licensed professional now. Respondent might also want to familiarize themselves with the rules of the Company Name Tribunal and if there is an appeals process available so they can ask their lawyer for more specific advice about the situation. They should be honest to their lawyer and tell them the whole situation.
You don't say what jurisdiction's patent laws you're interested in, and priority dates can differ in different schemes. I'm answering as to U.S. law only. In the United States, under the current hybrid "first-inventor-to-file" system, the priority date--the date that determines who "wins" if there are multiple claims to a specific invention--is, with some exceptions that I won't go into, the date of your first application. In other words, the date that the PTO got it in the mail. Once your application is submitted, it is--again, with some limitations I won't get into--prior art for the purposes of any later-submitted application. They can't get another application later, grant it first, and then deny your application based on the later-submitted application. Your application date would still win out. Could someone in the USPTO slip your application out of the stack, fudge the dates, and convince some other company to submit a similar application to get priority over you? Not as a practical matter, no. The USPTO isn't one guy in a room; it's a large organization, and the person who opens the mail, types in your application details, and sends you a receipt, isn't the same guy who knows whether your invention is any good or not. And, frankly, very few patentable inventions are going to be worth someone risking their job and/or jail time over--especially when there would be significant evidence of the misconduct--for example, your patent agent's files. So what are the chances that the examiner on your patent: 1) Is a nefarious character who has lived a life of public service long enough and wants to go rogue; 2) Has a friend in the mailroom who is also an expert in the field of your invention; and 3) Has a conduct in industry who is willing to break the law for the rights to your invention? Slim to none. And if you have an invention that is really so revolutionary that it's going to be worth so many people risking so much to steal it, odds are there will be other evidence that you were the inventor.
As far as I can see this means that I sign away any rights I currently have to any IP and also that I sign all rights to any IP I create whilst working for the company. The hiring manager says that I have this wrong and that it only means anything related to work that I would undertake during my employment with the company. Based on the quoted language, the hiring manager is correct. The key phrase is &quot;all rights to all material created in the course of your employment with the Company&quot; This means things created as part of your new job. It does not mean copyrights or other IP you now own, nor does it mean rights to things you create outside of work hours, unrelated to your job, not as part of any work assignment, and not created on work premises or using work equipment. You might want to confirm this by talking with a local lawyer with some IP experience and some employment law experience. A one-time consult should be available at a fairly small cost. The section about &quot;whether now existing or created in the future&quot; refers not to existing IP, but to existing kinds of IP and existing laws. If the UK should pass a new &quot;algorithm rights &quot; law next year, this language attempts to make sure that such rights are covered without needing you to sign a revised contract. Note that this phrase occurs as part of the definition of the term &quot;Intellectual Property Right&quot;, and it is limited by the phrase &quot;in respect of the material created by you in the course of your employment.&quot; A contract that attempted to claim all existing IP you may hold that is unrelated to your employment, or one which tried to claim IP having no relation to your future employment might be held void as against public policy. In any case, if it was ambiguous, any such ambiguity should be resolved against the drafter of the contract (here the company) and in favor of the other party. A separate email might be taken into account as showing what your &quot;meeting of the minds&quot; was with the company insofar as the contract language is ambiguous. It will not, however, be effective in changing the plain meaning of the contract.
The CEO, with his lawyer have tried to convince me that this only apply to current client and any past clients that I have work on. Is this true? No. It will be true only if they make that clarification in the clause or a properly added amendment. The clause currently has no indication that it is limited to "current client and any past clients that [you] have work[ed] on". The CEO's &amp; lawyer's refusal to amend the clause so as to make it consistent with their attempts [to persuade you] would be a red flag. Their inconsistent representations to you suggest that they are not planning to honor the covenant of good faith on which all contracts are premised. Should I expect the CEO to offer a fair contract or is this something you read and negotiate? You should require a contract that seems fair to you. And by "to you" I mean that it has to be in line with your expectations regardless of the average conditions in the labor market. Negotiations are not binding. They are merely a preamble to a contract, and that contract is binding. This is why you should reject a contract that falls short of your requirements. Some clauses are unlawful and/or void and unenforceable as unconscionable or for contravening legislation (unlawful clauses can and do arise even if drafted by attorneys). Thus, although you might not have to worry about those clauses in particular, the company's mere attempt to include them in a contract should alert you of the high risk of ending up with other abusive terms &amp; conditions which are binding and enforceable nonetheless.