Judge Puts Hold on a Hiring by Google

Google Inc.’s plan to open a research center in China was disrupted Thursday in Seattle, where a state judge temporarily blocked the company from hiring a former Microsoft Corp. executive to head the facility.

King County Superior Court Judge Steven Gonzalez issued a temporary restraining order barring the former Microsoft vice president, Kai-Fu Lee, from working on competing projects at Mountain View, Calif.-based Google. Microsoft claims Lee was privy to confidential information about its China strategy.

The order prevents Google “from employing Dr. Lee for, or otherwise engaging him, in any activities competitive with any product, service or project on which he worked while employed at Microsoft,” Gonzalez wrote in his ruling.

Lee is blocked from working on search-technology projects or any “business strategies, planning, or development with respect to the Chinese market for computer search technologies.”

“We’re gratified that the judge recognized that all Google and Dr. Lee have to do is avoid having Dr. Lee do anything competitive with what he did at Microsoft,” Nicole Wong, Google associate general counsel, said in an e-mailed statement.

Spokesman Steve Langdon said Google’s “plans for a research and development center in China will move forward without any disruption.”

Stacy Drake, a spokeswoman for Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft, said the company was pleased with the ruling. The order prevents Lee from working on some projects until additional hearings can be held for a preliminary injunction.

Lee, 43, an expert on speech recognition and artificial intelligence, for the last five years had run a Microsoft group working on speech software and improving Microsoft’s Internet search engine, the third-most popular.