Friday, a United States District court ordered Mark Papermaster, who was recently hired by Apple after he left his position at IBM, to cease work at the company, the decision having been aimed at preventing “Big Blue” trade secrets from being revealed to Apple.

The ruling from the U.S. District Court for Southern New York added that Papermaster was to stop working for Apple Incorporated until the court further ruled otherwise in the matter.

Back in October, Apple Chief Executing Officer (CEO) Steve Jobs announced he was planning to hire Mark Papermaster to develop hardware for the iPhone and the iPod, thus replacing Tony Fadell, senior vice president for Apple’s iPod division. The latter has been scheduled to remain with the company, taking up a position as one of Jobs’ advisories.

On October 22, IBM filed a lawsuit against their former executive, claiming his accepting a job offer from Apple Inc violated the non-compete agreement he had signed with the „Big Blue” in 2006. The document stated Papermaster was not to work for a competitor within one year after resigning from IBM.

The aforementioned company also tried to keep Mark Papermaster from leaving by having offered him a pay raise, along with one year’s salary if he complied with the terms of the non-compete agreement and declined job proposals from IBM competitors.

Nevertheless, Papermaster resigned on October 21, which prompted the „Big Blue” to file the legal action.

Until then, the exec had served as vicepresident for IBM’s Blade Development unit, after having also been in charge of the company’s technology development department and played an important role in the design of Power microprocessors.

Court filings read that Papermaster possessed many of IBM’s trade secrets, as well as confidential information concerning the company’s business strategy, which, according to the „Big Blue,” would have inevitably been disclosed to Apple Inc.

The U.S. District court is scheduled to reconvene with regards to the case on November 18.