Apple has sorta kinda gotten its way - like it got its way with the iPhone trademark.

It wanted IBM VP and MPU maven Mark Papermaster, portrayed by IBM as a walking library of IBM trade secrets, to start running its iPod and iPhone engineering in November; IBM sued to enforce Papermaster's sacred year-on-the-beach non-compete and persuaded a court to enjoined the guy from working at Apple. On Tuesday the companies came to terms.

Papermaster can start April 24, reporting to Steve Jobs should he be around. Jobs of course is on a six-month medical sabbatical and had surgery at Stanford Hospital on Monday if you listen to Valleywag. Bloomberg previously claimed Jobs might need a liver transplant.

Anyway, IBM settled for a six-month hiatus between jobs but Papermaster will have to certify in July and again in October, on the anniversary of his departure from IBM, that he didn't tell Apple any of IBM's secrets and swear to God under penalty of perjury whatever he's doing at Apple doesn't tread on any IBM IP.

He's under court order to tell IBM if "any information he intends to or may disclose or otherwise use in any way is IBM confidential information" and IBM gets to decide if the techniques are derivative or not - a decision from which there's no appeal.

The judge said IBM's decision "shall be final and binding and not subject to review in any way."