New York (NY) - On Thursday, IBM sued one of its top executives in an effort to keep him from accepting a position at Apple. IBM stated that Mark Papermaster, who was a vice president with the company’s blade server business until last week, signed a non-compete agreement with IBM that would not allow him to accept a job with a competitor for an entire year following a leave from IBM.

“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.,”  Fred McNeese, director of I.B.M.’s corporate media relations group told the New York Times “We will vigorously pursue this case in court.” The suit was filed at the United States District Court in Manhattan.

Prior to leaving IBM last week, Papermaster was the vice president of the Blade Development Unit which was responsible for selling computers for corporate data centers. The company stated that Papermaster was one of its top 300 managers, who had access to many of the company’s intellectual property and their trade secrets. He has held other positions in the company including heading up technology development and also working closely on the design of the company’s Power microprocessors.
 
Apple has not made any comments in regards to this dispute.