US judge blocks ex-Palantir staffers from poaching workers for new AI firm

A federal judge in Manhattan on Wednesday granted ⁠Palantir Technologies’ bid to block two ex-employees from soliciting its workers to join the company they launched last year

A federal judge in Manhattan on Wednesday granted ⁠Palantir Technologies’ bid to block two ex-employees from soliciting its workers to join the company they launched last year, Percepta AI, but declined to stop the former employees from working there.

The ‌ruling by U.S. District Judge Paul Oetken will be in place pending the outcome of Palantir’s lawsuit filed in October. The lawsuit ‌claimed that Percepta CEO Hirsh Jain and co-founder Radha Jain, who are ‌not ⁠related, used Palantir’s secret information to build a “copycat” AI software firm.

Oetken also ⁠barred Joanna Cohen, a former Palantir engineer now with Percepta, from breaching a confidentiality agreement she had signed with Palantir.

But the judge denied Palantir’s request to block the defendants from violating agreements they ​signed not to compete with the ‌company or solicit its customers, which would have barred them from working at Percepta indefinitely.

Oetken’s opinion explaining his reasoning was sealed. The judge said he would publish a redacted version after lawyers on both sides proposed redactions.

Percepta is ‌owned by venture capital firm General Catalyst and was publicly unveiled in ​October.