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Judge OKs Lee to Recruit, Staff for Google in ChinaBy TED GLANZER
TMCnet Communications and Broadband Columnist
Score one for Google Inc. in Round 2 of its legal skirmish against Microsoft Corp. over the employment services of former Microsoft executive Kai-Fu Lee.
A Washington state court judge on Tuesday held that while former Microsoft Corp. executive Kai-Fu Lee's noncompete agreement is valid, Lee may recruit for and staff a Google operations center in China, according to the Associated Press.
Still, the judge ruled that Lee "cannot set budget or compensation levels or define the research that Google will do in China," the AP reported. Google argued that it merely hired Lee, who oversaw the development of search engine technology at Microsoft for about five years, for recruiting and staffing purposes.
The judge's ruling takes the place of his initial preliminary injunction that he entered in July against Lee and Google; Microsoft's lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial in Washington state court in January.
Google filed a lawsuit of its own against Microsoft in California, where the law tends to favor employees with regard to the enforcement of noncompete agreements.
The two companies lately have been in a pitched competitive battle that is being fought on several fronts, including the IM market. In August, Google launched GoogleTalk, to which Microsoft responded with its acquisition of Teleo.
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Ted Glanzer is assistant editor for TMCnet. For more articles by Ted Glanzer, please visit:
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