In a made-in-Canada David-and-Goliath story, a Vancouver industrial automation technology company has scored a major victory against search engine giant Google.
The Supreme Court of Canada announced today (June 28) it will uphold a British Columbia judge’s verdict that directed Google to de-index – worldwide – the websites of Datalink Technologies Gateways, which was found to have stolen the intellectual property of Equustek Solutions Inc.
“The injunction in this case flows from the necessity of Google’s assistance to prevent the facilitation of Datalink’s ability to defy court orders and do irreparable harm to Equustek,” according to today’s ruling.
“Without the injunctive relief, it was clear that Google would continue to facilitate that ongoing harm.”
Background: Google, B.C. company in global e-commerce wrangle, September 21, 2016
Equustek had launched an action against Datalink after the latter company started distributing a counterfeit product that violated Equustek’s trademark. The product was developed and sold by Datalink’s Morgan Jack – a former Equustek distributor – and an engineer, also a former Equustek employee.
Jack disappeared after the courts agreed the Datalink product violated Equustek’s intellectual property rights, but continued to sell the counterfeit product online, in spite of multiple cease-and-desist orders.
Equustek then went after Google, asking it to de-index all Datalink webpages.
Equustek and Google went to court in December 2012, and Google delisted 345 of Datalink’s webpages between December 2012 and January 2013. Not all of the company’s websites were de-indexed, however, so its sites continued to appear in Google searches, going around the court order. As well, Google only de-indexed those websites on Google.ca.
Equustek then sought an injunction to attempt to have Google remove all of Datalink’s websites. In 2014, the BC Supreme Court ruled that the search engine must do so. Google launched an appeal which the court dismissed.
According to the June 28 ruling, “in the absence of an evidentiary foundation, and given Google’s right to seek a rectifying order, it hardly seems equitable to deny Equustek the extraterritorial scope it needs to make the remedy effective, or even to put the onus on it to demonstrate, country by country, where such an order is legally permissible.
“We are dealing with the Internet after all, and the balance of convenience test has to take full account of its inevitable extraterritorial reach when injunctive relief is being sought against an entity like Google.”
- With files from Nelson Bennett
