Everyone should stop for a minute and imagine what would happen if this legal precedent spread to the tech startup world. We might then have situations where a highly experienced programmer might sign up with a startup, and sign a contract with that startup, but then have the contract declared null and void if the startup is acquired.

I can imagine a "less likely" and "more likely" way this might play out:

1.) "less likely" would be something bordering on blatant theft -- perhaps the contract specifies options or bonuses, but the parent company, after the acquisition, no longer wants to pay. That would be fairly blatant, though not impossible.

2.) "more likely" would, I think, be issues regarding copyright, which, with software, allows something of a fudge factor, since software is always changing, and no one programmer writes the whole of a large system. I'm thinking of my own startup here: during the years 2000 to 2002 I created a content management system, which then became the basis of a company that was formed in 2002. But the founding documents of that company gave me the right to specific royalty payments for the CMS, even if we eventually agreed to dissolve the company (which we did in 2008). But suppose the company was acquired, and then the acquiring company declared that the requirement to pay royalties was null and void? This is very similar to what apparently happened with Gravity.

Worrisome.