Last week, we reported on the antitrust case brought by five former employees of technology companies, who filed a lawsuit against Apple, Google, Pixar and others, alleging a secret conspiracy to eliminate competition in favor of an agreement where one company could not hire employees from another.
Today, a court filing reveals Steve Jobs' proposal to Palm and threats of patent lawsuits if the company did not agree to this hiring embargo. Palm's then-executive, Edward Colligan, responded to Jobs by stressing that the joint agreement was illegal. "Palm does not target other companies - we look for the best people we can find. I hoped the same could be said for Apple," Colligan said in an email, noting that Apple hired at least 2 percent of Palm's workforce while Palm hired just 3 people and that he was not afraid of lawsuits since his company had acquired some patents from Siemens that Siemens could in turn use against it.
Jobs responded that Siemens' essential patents were licensed to Palm, and that the ones that were actually sold were not that important. "We looked at them when they were put up for sale. I imagine you thought they were good and bought them. We're not worried about them at all. My advice is to take a look at our patents before you make a final decision here.".
This isn't the first time Jobs has been upset with companies hiring Apple employees. Steve Jobs emailed Eric Schmidt, then CEO of Google, in March 2007 because a company employee was trying to "recruit" an Apple engineer.
The latest development in this case concerns Tim Cook, who must testify in court about what he knew at the time.
Dimitrios Georgoulas @ GreekAppleNews
