Apparently I was mistaken regarding the venue of the Apple/IBM dispute over former IBM executive Mark Papermaster's non-compete; I had read that the matter was set to play out in California, a notoriously lax environment for non-compete enforcement, but Computerworld is reporting now that IBM has obtained an injunction in New York federal district court against Papermaster to stop work for Apple until further notice.

I've read advice suggesting that non-competes are also difficult to enforce in New York state, but this order appears to be from a federal, rather than state, court. I have no idea what the implications are of that... probably some other crazy interpretation of the Interstate commerce clause that serves as the auspice for most of the more objectionable domestic activities of the federal government. I'll have to go troll Findlaw and see if they have any comments on the implications... but it may or may not turn out to be the precedent setting case I imagined when I last posted about it.