Below, an excerpt from the suit and the document in full:

On or about early-June, 2009, Mr. Gawronski purchased for $0.99 an electronic copy of George Orwell’s “1984″ for use on his Kindle 2 from Amazon’s Kindle Store. He purchased the book because it was assigned to him as a summer homework assignment by a teacher at his high school.

On or about July 20, 2009, after reading online about Amazon’s practice of remotely deleting copies of “1984″ from Kindles, Mr. Gawronski powered on his Kindle 2 only to watch “1984″ vanish before his very eyes. Because “1984″ was the most recent book he had been reading on his Kindle 2 prior to July 20, 2009, the Kindle 2 powered on to the last page of “1984″ Mr. Gawronski had been reading. Within moments of powering on his Kindle 2 to this page of “1984,” the entire e-book disappeared as Amazon immediately remotely deleted it from his Kindle 2.

Mr. Gawronksi did not consent to Amazon remotely deleting “1984″ from his Kindle 2.

As part of his studies of “1984,” Mr. Gawronski had made copious notes in the book. After Amazon remotely deleted “1984,” those notes were rendered useless because they no longer referenced the relevant parts of the book. The notes are still accessible on the Kindle 2 device in a file separate from the deleted book, but are of no value. For example, a note such as “remember this paragraph for your thesis” is useless if it does not actually a reference a specific paragraph. By deleting “1984″ from Mr. Gawronski’s Kindle 2, this is the position in which Amazon left him. Mr. Gawronski now needs to recreate all of his studies.

Amazon_Complaint

UPDATE:

Mark Papermaster’s memory of Apple and IBM old rivalry is quite a bit better than originally thought. Turns out the quote that inspired this post was excerpted from a longer, far less contentious statement by an Information Week reporter.

What Papermaster said in his declaration was this:

Until this litigation effort by IBM, 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.”

What Information Week reported him as saying was this:

I do not recall a single instance of Apple being described as a competitor of IBM during my entire tenure at IBM.”

A juicy quote, to be sure, but without the caveat that preceded it, an inaccurate one. My apologies to Mark Papermaster.

This is pretty funny.

Mark Papermaster, the 26-year IBM (IBM) veteran being sued by his employer for taking a job at Apple (AAPL), is convinced Big Blue’s suit is entirely without merit. Why? Apple doesn’t compete with IBM and never has.

“I do not recall a single instance of Apple being described as a competitor of IBM during my entire tenure at IBM,” Papermaster said in a court filing.

Now, I know Apple’s famous “1984″ ad (see below) is a few decades old now, and memories of the company’s 1984 Annual Shareholders meeting are well faded, even at Apple. But surely someone, somewhere in Cupertino must recall CEO Steve Jobs’s comments at that meeting.

The early 1980s. 1981–Apple II has become the world’s most popular computer, and Apple has grown to a $300 million corporation, becoming the fastest-growing company in American business history. With over 50 companies vying for a share, IBM enters the personal computer market in November 1981, with the IBM PC.

IBM wants it all, and is aiming its guns at its last obstacle to industry control, Apple. Will Big Blue dominate the entire computer industry? The entire information age? Was George Orwell right?

I’d say that qualifies as an instance of Apple being described as a competitor of IBM, wouldn’t you?

Apple legal must be on a class trip or something….