Who owns your knowledge?

Ken is a process engineer for Stardust Chemical Corp., and he has signed a secrecy agreement with the firm that prohibits his divulging information that the company considers proprietary.

Stardust has developed an adaptation of a standard piece of equipment that makes it highly efficient for cooling a viscous plastics slurry. (Stardust decides not to patent the idea but to keep it as a trade secret.)

Eventually, Ken leaves Stardust and goes to work for a candy-processing company that is not in any way in competition. He soon realises that a modification similar to Stardust's trade secret could be applied to a different machine used for cooling fudge and, at once, has the change made.

Has Ken acted unethically?

 

My opinion Ken act is ethically. If you sell your idea at particular time the can use it at the same time and improve it. They can use your experiences while you are working with them. But they shouldn’t delete your knowledge after you worked with them.  While you sign the contract with the company can ask you to keep the specificities of the company confidential. They don’t have the right to ask you to use your private knowledge. The can extend their contract if both sides accept.