Well you can't go around taking your employer's data with you.
Defendant contends that if "tangible" means "having physical form," then the statutory term "tangible reproduction" would involve a redundancy because all computer data is stored in some physical medium. We disagree. Someone with a photographic memory who memorized a piece of source code would not be making a tangible reproduction of the code (see generally Bottone, 365 F2d at 393 [referring to a hypothetical "case where a carefully guarded secret formula was memorized, carried away in the recesses of a thievish mind and placed in writing only after a boundary had been crossed"]). It is true that copying secret scientific material solely by memorizing it would not fall under the statute for a separate reason, i.e., that{*31 NY3d at 400} it would not be "writing, photographing, drawing, mechanically or electronically reproducing or recording such secret scientific material" (Penal Law § 165.07). Nevertheless, the word "tangible," as we interpret it, does not introduce redundancy; it adds a modest element to "reproduction," serving to emphasize that the crime consists in making a physical, not a mental, copy of secret scientific material.
(From: https://www.nycourts.gov/reporter/3dseries/2018/2018_03174.h...)
So anyway, you're not violating New York State law if you remember how your system works and you take it to your next employer. Contracts you sign and patent law still exist, however.
I know its outlandish, just food for thought.
World of difference between bringing your experience to a new job versus pages of CPU schematics.
But note infringing on a patent is different than being an expert.
It's not a perfect analogy, but I like to think of it in terms of patterns vs algorithms.
If all they hired you to do is make a random database, and you do so in a really efficient manner, then you still own the right to use your skills to make a really efficient database for others. If they hire you to make a specific database, and you make it really efficient, then they probably own the rights to such a specific database, but you still retain the rights to make other kinds of databases in a really efficient manner. If they hire you to develop database to a certain degree of efficiency, then they might own the techniques you used to make it efficient, but this should be blatantly spelled out in your employment contract, and you should have been appropriately compensated for the inability to use this particular skillset in the future.
This doesn't seem to be the sort of thing that can be measured with a margin of error.
If an acquisition fell through, it shouldn't be surprising that employees who were dissatisfied with that outcome wouldn't jump ship.