The issues between Apple and IBM regarding Mr. Mark Papermaster and his past and future activities continue and the solution does not appear to be near. This Friday, a federal court judge ruled that IBM’s former employee must stop any project with Apple for the time being as there are several aspects that must be carefully verified.

U.S. District Court Judge Kenneth Karas stated only that Papermaster "will immediately cease his employment with Apple Inc. until further order of this court," and added that more details will be provided at another time.

The whole incident began when Papermaster decided to leave IBM and take a new position with Apple. His former employer issued a lawsuit claiming that his one-year exclusivity contract forbids him from joining the competition. Mr. Papermaster maintains his firm belief that his move does not violate the noncompeting contract, as in his opinion the two companies do not cover the same market. "To the best of my knowledge, IBM does not design, manufacture or market consumer electronic products," Papermaster explained in a court document filed last week. "Instead, IBM focuses on high-performance business systems such as information technology infrastructure, servers and information storage products, and operating systems software," while "Apple, on the other hand, is in the business of designing, manufacturing and marketing consumer-oriented hardware and related products," he added.

He explained that his decision to leave IBM was not something he considered, as his 26 years with IBM represent a great deal for him. Still, Apple’s officials offered him "a once in a lifetime opportunity" which he had to take. He is now the senior VP for devices hardware engineering for Apple, which puts him in charge of the development on the iPhone and the iPod. "Mark is a seasoned leader and is going to be an excellent addition to our senior management team," said Apple’s CEO Jobs, in a statement released last week. The company’s official statement notes that Papermaster was not hired because of certain specific knowledge or experience gained in his 26 years with IBM, but for his general engineer skills and also for his extremely strong management skills.

IBM’s fears are related to Papermaster’s ability of helping Apple develop server and chip products using the massive amounts of information he gathered in his many years with the company. According to IBM, Papermaster is in possession of sensitive information that represent "highly confidential IBM trade secrets" which have the potential to "irreparably harm" the company if he will begin to work for Apple.

As soon as the news about the resignation surfaced, IBM’s officials offered their employee a significant salary increase in order to keep him with the company but their efforts were useless as Papermaster submitted his resignation on October 21 and announced that starting with the first of November he would be joining Apple. On the very next day IBM sued its former employee and demanded the court to stop him from joining the company and also some financial retributions.