IBM filed suit last week in a US district court to prevent former Blade development vice president Mark Papermaster from taking up a position with Apple. The company said that the executive, Mark Papermaster, who until last week had been manager in charge of the company’s blade server business, had signed a noncompete agreement with I.B.M. that would prevent him from accepting a job with a competitor until one year after leaving I.B.M.

“Mr. Papermaster’s employment by Apple is a violation of his agreement with I.B.M. against working for a competitor should he leave I.B.M.,” said Fred McNeese, director of I.B.M.’s corporate media relations group. “We will vigorously pursue this case in court.” The suit was filed at the United States District Court in Manhattan.

The lawsuit, which was filed on October 22 alleges that as one of the key 300 executives on IBM"s "elite Integration & Values Team" and as a key designer of Power processors and blade servers, Papermaster is "privy to a whole host of trade secrets and confidences" that IBM uses to design products.  According to IBM's complaint, Papermaster resigned from IBM on October 21, saying that his job at Apple would start in November. The complaint is not terribly specific about what job Papermaster is taking at Apple, but IBM's lawyers claim that in the wake of Apple's acquisition of clone Power chip maker PA Semi earlier this year and now Papermaster's appointment, Apple and IBM will be competitors in the server space.

IBM has sued Mark Papermaster this month, and Motorola sued Michael Fenger back in July. IBM is now back in court as they try to stop Papermaster, who is a Power chip and blade server guru from taking up a new job with Apple.