Microsoft got tough with a former top executive for defecting to rival Google, suing both him and Google for violating a noncompetition agreement signed when he was hired at Microsoft.In a complaint filed Tuesday in the King County Superior Court in Washington, Microsoft named as a defendant Kai-Fu Lee, who joined Google Tuesday to spearhead new research and development efforts in China. Until Monday, Lee was corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Natural Interactive Services Division.“We are asking the Court to require Dr. Lee and Google to honor the confidentiality and non-competition agreements he signed when he began working for Microsoft,” the Redmond, Washington-based company said in a press statement. “Creating intellectual property is the essence of what we do at Microsoft, and we have a responsibility to our employees and our shareholders to protect our intellectual property. As a senior executive, Dr. Lee has direct knowledge of Microsoft’s trade secrets concerning search technologies and China business strategies. He has accepted a position focused on the same set of technologies and strategies for a direct competitor in egregious violation of his explicit contractual obligations.” Microsoft has good reason to go to the mat to stop Lee, said Rob Enderle, president of the Enderle Group. “The guy (Lee) was their central guy in China,” Enderle said. “He knows centralized strategy and is responsible for the lab in China. Undoubtedly, Google will be doing some of the things Microsoft does. If there is a handful of people who know what Microsoft is going to be doing, he’s one of them. “The typical rule of thumb is when an executive leaves he’s asked to sit out a year so the information is no longer relevant,” Enderle added. According to a Google press statement, the company aims for Lee, who is known for his work in the areas of speech recognition and artificial intelligence, to expand Google’s recruitment, research and development efforts in China, IDG News Service reported. The vendor expects to open its new China facility in the third quarter of this year. Microsoft is asking the court to prevent Lee and Google from undertaking any actions that violate Lee’s noncompete employment agreement with Microsoft, as well as from “disclosing or misappropriating” any of Microsoft’s trade secrets or proprietary information, according to the complaint. Microsoft also is requesting that the court to prohibit Lee or anyone at Google from possibly luring other Microsoft employees away from the company, as well as from destroying any documents, whether written or electronic, that re-late in any way to Microsoft’s and Google’s employment of Lee. In a statement, Google executives said Microsoft’s claims are “completely without merit” and that the company plans to fight the suit. “We’re thrilled to have Dr. Lee on board at Google,” the company said. “We will defend vigorously against these meritless claims and will fully support Dr. Lee.” Google and Microsoft have become increasingly heated rivals in the areas of email and desktop search, and Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer has repeatedly expressed his intentions to unseat Google from its dominant posi-tion in the search engine space. Indeed, just Monday at the annual Microsoft Re-search Faculty Summit, Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates referred to Google as a “faddishly hot” company, suggesting that the vendor is merely a flash in the pan. Technology Industry