{"id":4578,"date":"2016-04-04T10:47:36","date_gmt":"2016-04-04T15:47:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/content.findlaw-admin.com\/ability-law\/smallbusiness\/business-operations\/issues-with-using-trademarks-as-meta-tag-keywords.html"},"modified":"2024-06-06T03:23:20","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T08:23:20","slug":"issues-with-using-trademarks-as-meta-tag-keywords","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.findlaw.com\/smallbusiness\/business-operations\/issues-with-using-trademarks-as-meta-tag-keywords.html","title":{"rendered":"Issues With Using Trademarks as Meta Tag Keywords"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Issues With Using Trademarks as Meta Tag Keywords<\/h1>\n
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\n By Susan Buckner, J.D.<\/a> | Legally reviewed by Susan Mills Richmond, Esq.<\/a>\n | Last updated\n
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Using someone else’s trademarks as your meta tag keywords could cause legal problems. Generally speaking, a meta tag is a piece of HTML code embedded in the web page. This tag identifies the content contained within the site. Search engines use meta tag keywords to affect the frequency with which they display a website as a hit.<\/p>\r\n

Below is an overview of meta tags and trademark issues. See FindLaw’s Internet and E-Commerce<\/a> and Trademarks<\/a> sections for additional articles and resources.<\/p>\r\n

Meta Tag Keywords and Trademark Issues<\/h2>\r\n

While meta tags are powerful tools to help websites be "found"<\/a> by search engines, they can be improperly used as keywords. Some companies have used their competitors’ trademarks within their meta tags to draw business away from their competitors’ websites, resulting in several lawsuits. If you use your competitors’ trademarks within your website’s meta tags, you risk paying damages and even the other side’s attorney fees if you lose in court.<\/p>\r\n

How Meta Tags Work<\/h3>\r\n

You generally don’t see the meta tags that a website feeds search engines. Meta data is part of the site’s source code and not visible on screen. If you know how to view HTML codes, you can see the source code. But it won’t mean much unless you understand HTML.<\/p>\r\n

Search engines<\/a> are the primary users of meta tags. Depending on how the search engine’s code runs, it will find and use a website’s meta tags to index it within the search. The importance of meta tags for use in search engines has waxed and waned periodically throughout the history of search engines.<\/p>\r\n

Today, search engines like Google use complex algorithms to create page rankings. The use of meta tags in their algorithms depends on the searchers’ prior search history and the nature of the question. Google returns the search engine results based on the meta tags the algorithm collects.<\/p>\r\n

For example, a query might be, "How do meta tags work in Texas?" A keyword meta tag for a website that discusses how meta tags work in Texas might look like this:<\/p>\r\n

<meta name= "keywords" content= "metatags,metatag,search engine,deployment,Texas,United States"><\/p>\r\n

The description meta tag could look like this:<\/p>\r\n

<META name=" description" content=" Information on the meta tags keywords and how they are used on the internet"><\/p>\r\n

Google’s algorithm would compare the query and keywords and return that website at the top of the rankings for that searcher’s question.<\/p>\r\n

Dilution, Tarnishment, and Blurring<\/h2>\r\n

Since search engines only look for keywords in a searcher’s query, anything in the meta tags will pop in the search, even if the site itself is irrelevant to the searcher’s actual query. Most users have had the experience of searching for a topic and having an unrelated site appear in their list. This was very common in the early days of the internet.<\/p>\r\n

Trademark law recognizes several types of trademark infringement<\/a>. The most common form is simply using the registered trademark as your own. Intentional trademark theft is a federal offense. The trademark owner may file legal action against the infringing company in court.<\/p>\r\n

When a meta tag uses a company’s trademark, the goal is often to draw traffic from the legitimate trademark owner to the infringer’s web page. For instance, a computer company that doesn’t sell Intel products might put "intel_chips,intel,intel_coprocessor," and other keywords into its meta tags. When a searcher queries "Intel products," the infringer’s site will rank high. Courts have held that this type of trademark infringement is unfair competition.<\/p>\r\n