Happy New Year!

Hello!

Happy New Year! I hope your holiday break was wonderful! I am so excited to start the New Year. This is a very exciting time for Intellectual Property Law! There are some fantastic conferences on legal issues in new media that I am attending this year. Also I am very curious about the effect the newly created Intellectual Property Coordinator/Czar will have on IP issues in this new digital age.

In March I am attending another Practising Law Institute Conference which will focus on Intellectual Property law issues in Web 2.0. Specifically, the conference will cover:

Legal issues using mobile devices
Liability issues in social networks and blogs
Use of key words and meta-tags. I discussed these issues here.
The future of advertising and product placement.

I am particularly interested in the future of advertising and product placement as it relates to advertisers using social media and various new media platforms. I am so looking forward to this conference and can't wait to report back to you (my readers) about the cutting edge legal issues affecting your blogs, social networks, and other new media platforms.

Thank you for continually reading and supporting IP LAW 101. If there are any other topics you would like me to discuss, or if you have any questions, please let me know.

Best!

Using Third Party Trademarks as Meta-Tags on Blogs

Hello!

I hope all is well! Like most bloggers, I use meta-tags based on the subject of my blog or posts, to make it easier for search engines to find my blog when an internet users enters the search term. However, what happens when you use a trademark as a search term.  Is it trademark infringement or a search engine linking function?  This issue was discussed at PLI's Intellectual Property Law Institute.  There are two critical cases that have recently addressed this issue. However, each ruling is different.  Here is a brief synopsis of the law as it stands today:

1. The use of trademarks in meta-tags is "use in commerce" and therefore trademark infringement. The 11th Circuit came to this inclusion this year in North American Medical Corp. v. Axiom. The court stated that the use of a trademark as a meta-tag was use in commerce. Essentially, the court concluded that the use of the meta-tag, which resulted in the trademark in question being displayed on the search engine, was an advertisement for the sale of goods. Thus it was used in commerce.

2. However, the 2nd circuit decided in 1-800 Contacts, Inc. v. WhenU.Com, Inc. that use of trademarks in meta-tags was not a "use in commerce" because the search engine merely provided the link to the trademark.  The court emphasized that linking a trademark through a search engine was not a use in commerce because the trademark in question was being displayed by a machine and the defendant was not causing the trademark to be physically placed on goods or services, or was physically causing the trademark to be displayed or reproduced.  

What does all of this mean for those of us who use meta-tags? Although the 2nd Circuit and 11th Circuit give different opinions on whether the use of trademarks in meta-tags is trademark infringement, it is better to be safe than sorry.  When using meta-tags be wary of using trademarks.  Make sure that when you purchase key words meta-tags that there are not any trademark in the list.  The last thing you want is to be sued by a huge corporate giant for trademark infringement.