• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, July 21, 2005

The battle to dominate search took an unusual turn this week when Microsoft sued Google over the defection of top computer scientist Kai-Fu Lee.

Microsoft filed suit claiming that Lee had signed a contract stating he wouldn't work for any Microsoft competitors for at least one year after leaving the company.

At first glance, it's hard to see what Microsoft hopes to gain from this suit. Agreements not to compete are rarely enforced by the courts. Given Microsoft's long history playing defense in antitrust litigation, it's hard to imagine a judge would be sympathetic to the company's attempt to stifle competition in this case.

Microsoft also claims Lee has proprietary strategic information about business plans in China. The allegation reminds the Minute of disputes about business method patents, such as the infamous Amazon-Barnes & Noble squabble about whether the idea of one-click ordering was deserving of patent protection. (That case was settled in 2001, after an appeals court overturned an injunction that prevented BarnesandNoble.com from using the one-click process.)

Recently, Microsoft has been struggling to catch up with Google -- not altogether successfully. When Microsoft finally released its own search engine last year, boasting that it indexed 5 billion pages compared to Google's then 4 billion page index, Google responded by doubling its index size to 8 billion pages.

Size aside, consumers haven't yet embraced Microsoft's search engine. New numbers from Nielsen//NetRatings show that Microsoft actually lost market share in search in the second quarter, with the number of searches declining by 4 percent, while Google showed 6 percent growth.

If Microsoft really wants to grow its share of search, it should devote its energy to improving its own technology, as opposed to trying to control its competitors.