On February 18, 2016, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) granted Google Inc leave to appeal from a decision of the British Columbia Court of Appeal (BCCA) that upheld an interim injunction restraining Google - a non-party in the underlying action - from indexing the defendants’ websites on Google’s global search engine, google.com.  The plaintiffs claim that the defendants created a product by misappropriating their trade secrets and are passing off that product as the plaintiffs’ product online.

The BCCA decision garnered international attention for its finding that a foreign company can be subject to a British Columbia court order with global effect based on interactions between that foreign company and British Columbians online.  It appears that the SCC will weigh in on at least some of the questions that arise in this case, which include:

·     Under what circumstances may a court order a search engine to block search results, having regard to the interest in access to information and freedom of expression, and what limits (either geographic or temporal) must be imposed on those orders?

·     Do Canadian courts have the authority to block search results outside Canada’s borders?

·     Under what circumstances, if any, is a litigant entitled to an interlocutory injunction against a non-party that is not alleged to have done anything wrong?

 

Dates for the SCC hearing are forthcoming.  For news reports on this case, view the following:

            CBC

            Globe and Mail

            Washington Post

E-TIPS® ISSUE

16 02 24

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