whether heretofore or hereafter obtained by Employee while in the employ of the Employer Group. Upon leaving the employ of the Employer Group, Employee will not take or use, without the prior written consent of Employer, any memoranda, notes (whether or not prepared by Employee during the course of Employee’s employment with the Employer Group), lists, schedules, forms or other documents, papers or records of any kind (including, but not limited to, computerized or other records and documents in digital form or otherwise), relating to the Employer Group’s businesses or clients or any reproduction, summary or abstract thereof (including by means of discs or any other medium), all of which Employee acknowledges are the exclusive property of the Employer Group; provided that Employee shall be entitled to retain and utilize any such material solely relating to this Agreement, his rights hereunder, and his equity interests or equity based awards in any member of the Employer Group. Employee hereby agrees to surrender to Employer upon request at any time after the termination of Employee’s employment with the Employer Group all Confidential Information and other Employer property; provided, that, under no circumstances shall Employee be required to surrender or turn over his Outlook contacts, which shall remain his sole property.
7.2 Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained herein, nothing in this Agreement shall prohibit Employee from reporting possible violations of federal law or regulation to or otherwise cooperating with or providing information requested by any governmental agency or entity, including, but not limited to, the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Congress, and any agency Inspector General, or making other disclosures that are protected under the whistleblower provisions of federal law or regulation. Employee does not need the prior authorization of Employer to make any such reports or disclosures and Employee is not required to notify Employer that Employee has made such reports or disclosures.
8. Intellectual Property.
8.1 If Employee creates, invents, designs, develops, contributes to or improves any works of authorship, inventions, intellectual property, materials, documents or other work product (including, without limitation, research, reports, software, databases, systems, applications, presentations, textual works, content or audiovisual materials) (“Works”), either alone or with third parties, at any time during Employee’s employment by the Employer Group and within the scope of such employment and/or with the use of any of the Employer Group’s resources (“Employer Works”), Employee hereby irrevocably assigns, transfers and conveys, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, all rights and intellectual property rights therein (including rights under patent, industrial property, copyright, trademark, trade secret, unfair competition and related laws) to Employer to the extent ownership of any such rights does not vest originally in Employer.
8.2 Employee shall take all requested actions and execute all necessary documents (including any licenses or assignments) at Employer’s expense (but without further remuneration) to assist Employer in validating, maintaining, protecting, enforcing, perfecting, recording, patenting or registering any of Employer’s rights in Employer Works. If Employer is unable for any other reason to secure Employee’s signature on any document for this purpose, then Employee hereby irrevocably designates and appoints Employer and its duly authorized officers and agents as Employee’s agent and attorney in fact, to act for and in Employee’s behalf and stead to execute any documents and to do all other lawfully permitted acts in connection with the foregoing.
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