U.S. District Court Judge Kenneth Karas ruled that Mark Papermaster, who was recently announced as Apple’s iPhone chief, must “immediately cease his employment with Apple Inc. until further Order of this Court.”

The Federal move Friday was the result of Papermaster’s breach-of-contract dispute with former employer IBM. On October 22, IBM sued Papermaster, claiming that a non-competition agreement he signed in 2006 bars him from working for competitors for a year after leaving the company.

According to IBM, Papermaster had information of “highly confidential IBM trade secrets” that would “irreparably harm” the company if he’s allowed to work for Apple.

Papermaster maintains that his move does not violate the contract he signed with IBM because “Apple and IBM are not even competitors,” and staked his argument on the focus by each. Apple, he argued, is focused on consumers, while IBM targeted businesses, particularly large companies.

In the documents filed in US District Court in Manhattan, Papermaster noted: “To the best of my knowledge, IBM does not design, manufacture or market consumer electronic products. Instead, IBM focuses on high-performance business systems such as information technology infrastructure, servers and information storage products, and operating systems software.”

Papermaster, a 26-year veteran of IBM, stated: “Aside from the divested IBM personal computer business and a single sale several years ago of Apple’s Xserve product to a university, I do not recall a single instance of Apple being described as a competitor of IBM during my entire tenure at IBM.”