Papermaster forced to report back to Big Blue
MARK PAPERMASTER, the ex-IBM chip expert who has been trying to turn up for his first day at work with Apple for months and months now, has been told he can report to his new office on April 24th, as long as he keeps his nose clean and tells his former paymasters what he's up to.
Papermaster has settled a noncompete lawsuit filed by IBM, which would have meant that he couldn't work for Apple for at least a year because his head was full of all sorts of secrets learned throughout his years on the Big Blue payroll.
The settlement means that Papermaster will have to let IBM know if any of the work he is doing potentially infringes on any confidential or proprietory information he learned from his former employer.
The bit of the ruling that will really make the Cupertino Cabal see red is that IBM gets to decide if the techniques in question derive from its intellectual property, and its decisions are not subject to appeal.
Apple has said all along that, as Papermaster would be working on the Iphone and Ipod ranges, there would be no conflict of interest between the two companies.
We just hope Papermaster comes up with the goods because Steve and his little minions must be wondering if this particular new employee is going to be worth all the aggro. µ
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Feudalism would solve this problem. If the employees were made into serfs then the corps could trade them like little bits of IP.
IP embedded in flesh and bone.
There is another segment of the computer market which is where the real cutting edge is. That is High Productivity Computing. Several projects Mr. Papermaster worked on at IBM , Roadrunner being the highest profile, have very strict security requirements. DOJ could have enforced a 4 year layoff based on the usage of the modified Cell BE chip (double precision)usage in Roadrunner. Apple has a checkered history when it comes to compliance with the ITAR regulations. By the time that the agreement ends technology will have moved beyond the ITAR restrictions. The commenting press and public have missed the core issue which was Mr. Papermaster's direct responsibility for the development of DARPA funded and regulated technology.