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A story from stateside via Search Engine Land about a court ruling on a company using a companies trademark in their ‘meta data’:

North American Medical Corp. v. Axiom Worldwide, Inc. docket number 06-01678 CV-JTC-1 (PDF) doesn’t specifically say if the trademarked terms were in the keywords meta tag, description meta tag or some other meta tag. But the ruling is that Axiom, who used North American Medical Corp’s trademark in their meta tags, is in violation of trademark infringement.

The story comes from Eric Goldmans Blog which finishes off with a sentiment that sits with me…

If you are going to use keyword metatags, you must ensure that competitive trademarks do not appear in your keyword metatags, period. It’s just not worth it. They don’t buy you much juice with the search engines anyway, and it will leave you exposed to irrational judicial freakouts about keyword metatags if ever tested in court.

Back in 2001 we had to settle with a client who wouldn’t pay his bill because his website didn’t come number one in search engines for a one word search phrase, basically because the judge did not have a clue about what was being placed to hime and at the time I couldn’t be bothered to fight it. Not that I let it grind, even now after seven years, but the client also counter sued for lost earnings based on all the work he wasn’t getting for not being number one!