Judge Halts Google Suit Over Hiring

A federal judge has rebuffed Google Inc.’s attempt to remove court-ordered restrictions on its employment of prized computer scientist Kai-Fu Lee, whose recent defection from Microsoft Corp. exposed the escalating tensions between two of the world’s best-known companies.

In a ruling late Thursday, U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte declined to become involved in the legal battle over Lee until the completion of a Washington state trial on the validity of a noncompete agreement that Lee signed when he joined Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft in 2000.

The Washington trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 9.

Whyte’s stay of the lawsuit filed in San Jose by Mountain View, Calif.-based Google finalizes a tentative ruling he issued two weeks ago in a case that pits the Internet’s search engine leader against the world’s largest software maker.

Responding to a lawsuit filed by Microsoft, Washington state Judge Steven Gonzalez last month issued an order that prevented Lee from working on search technology or directing much of the work to be done at a Chinese research and development office that Google hired him to run.

The noncompete agreement expires in July -- one year after Google lured Lee away from Microsoft with a $10-million compensation package.

Google hoped to free up Lee this year by filing a suit in California, a state with a history of rejecting noncompete employment causes. Washington, in contrast, honors noncompete agreements.