A U.S. judge has slapped a temporary restraining order on Google in the search engine company's legal spat with Microsoft, news reports said Friday, according to dpa. The injunction prevents former Microsoft executive Kai-Fu Lee from performing any duties at the search giant that are similar to those he performed at Microsoft. The ruling will stand until a September 6 hearing in the case, in which Microsoft accuses Lee of violating a non-compete agreement he signed in 2000. Lee, who created Microsoft's research centre in Beijing and also led Microsoft's search efforts, was poached by Google recently to lead its China operations. The case has attracted widespread attention in the tech community because of the intense rivalry between the two companies and the high number of employees who have jumped from Microsoft to Google over the last year. Google claims that Lee's work with the company will not violate his agreement with Microsoft and that the court case is a "charade" by Microsoft to deter other employees from switching to Google.
