Canada's top court on Wednesday ordered Google to remove a website from its worldwide search results in what some experts are calling a landmark international copyright protection case.

The original injunction, which the Supreme Court upheld, had been requested by Canadian telecommunications equipment manufacturer Equustek Solutions, which successfully sued another company for relabeling its products and passing them off as their own. Following that lower court ruling, Google de-indexed 345 webpages associated with the offending firm in Canada. But the company fled the country and continued to market the counterfeit products from an unknown location.

Google balked when Equustek asked it to go further and de-index all mentions of the offending company worldwide. The Supreme Courtconcluded: "Without the injective relief, it was clear that Google would continue to facilitate that ongoing harm" to Equustek.