IBM must put up $3 million in Papermaster case
IBM only had to pay a $350 filing fee to sue Mark Papermaster, the 25-year IBM (IBM) veteran hired by Steve Jobs last month to run Apple’s (AAPL) iPod and iPhone division.
It’s going to cost the company a lot more to pursue the case.
Last Friday, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas granted Big Blue the preliminary injunction it sought — based on a noncompetition clause signed in 2006 — and ordered Papermaster to stop working for Apple immediately. See The Papermaster chronicles.
On Tuesday, the judge ordered IBM to put up a bond to cover any costs or damages Papermaster might suffer should it turn out that the injunction should not have been issued. Noting that district courts are granted “wide discretion” in determining how big a bond to require, Karas writes:
“Here, based on a careful reading of the letters sent by the Parties to the Court, which are being filed under seal, the Court finds that a bond in the amount of $3,000,000 is appropriate to guarantee payment of the costs and damages that Defendant may incur…”
On Wednesday, Papermaster’s lawyers filed their answer to IBM’s suit and filed counterclaims of their own. They admitted only those facts that were indisputable and denied pretty much everything else — including the fact that Papermaster worked for IBM.
IBM and Apple aren’t competitors, they claim, and even if they were, Papermaster has been hired to do work that has nothing to do with IBM. And even if it did, IBM’s noncompetition agreement is unreasonably broad, Papermaster’s lawyers assert. What’s more, they argue, it doesn’t apply in Texas (where Papermaster worked for 17 years) or California (where Apple is based) — neither of which honor such agreements.
A status conference is set for Tuesday, Nov. 18 at 10 a.m. in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, White Plains.
Below the fold: links to the key court documents.
You sue me, I sue you!
Countersuit filed by Papermaster on Thursday -
http://images.appleinsider.com/papermaster_countersuit_081114.pdf
Zato, don’t be so ignorant, if they arent going to sue them now, they will sue them later when Apple’s silicon designs will most likely infringe on some form of IBM’s designs or intellectual property rights.
Drop this BS, IBM. The smell is getting nasty. It could get much worse.
You will lose and be discredited. Nothing good can come from this.
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Silicon Valley veterans like to joke that Steve Jobs must be surrounded by a reality distortion field; if you get too close to him, you start to believe what he's saying. Thanks to the success of the iPod, the launch of the iPhone and the renewed interest in the Mac, Apple has made believers out of millions of customers - and made a lot of investors rich. But Philip Elmer-DeWitt believes that an ounce of skepticism never hurts when writing about the company. He should know. He's been covering Apple - and watching Steve Jobs operate - since 1982, first for Time Magazine, then for Business 2.0, and now for Fortune.
The author of this article should read better. Contrary to this article’s assertion, Papermaster in his pleadings does not deny that he worked for IBM. He, however, denied that he is currently employed by IBM. There is a big difference.
ex ped: That was a little joke. Leave it to lawyers to find something to deny even in statements as anodyne as: “9. Mr. Papermaster has been an employee of IBM for the past 26 years.”