Microsoft and Google were back in court on Tuesday in their dispute over Kai-Fu Lee, the executive who left Microsoft to head Google’s new research and development center in China. Videotaped depositions were shown in court from Google’s Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt, and Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer.


King County Superior Court Judge Steven Gonzalez finished listening to testimony and arguments today in Microsoft’s request for a preliminary injunction against Lee and Google. Videotaped depositions were shown in court by both sides. Judge Steven is expected to issue a ruling on that request next Tuesday.

Videotapes played Tuesday included excerpts from depositions of Google founder Sergey Brin, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, Ballmer and Gates.

Among other things, Gates said in his deposition that Lee helped prepare correspondence from Gates to then-Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Ballmer, in his deposition, said Lee had “a huge impact on what we did in China very broadly, including all the issues around government relations.” Ballmer described Lee as the executive in Redmond responsible for “shepherding all of our R & D activities in China.”

Google’s lawyer, John Keker, argued that Lee had not worked directly on any China or search-related projects at Microsoft before Google hired him. Lee, 43, had established Microsoft’s research and development center in Beijing before moving to Redmond to work on software that allows computers to process speech and natural language data.

Keker said that Microsoft “greatly exaggerated” Lee’s role in planning the software giant’s China strategy: “There’s no basis for an injunction,” he said.

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