A small company's Web site based marketing efforts can draw attention and business from far outside its local community. However, some of this attention may be unwanted - in the form of lawsuits filed by competitors half a world away. That type of unwanted attention fell on Clue Computing, a small computer consulting business in Longmont, Colorado. 1 Hasbro filed suit against Clue Computing in a federal district court in Massachusetts. Links and meta-tags within a Web site can also lead to trademark disputes.
Most Web sites provide links as shortcuts to other Web pages.
Links using the trademark logo of the linked site without permission can create liability. For this reason, link licenses are becoming more common and oftentimes recommended. Meta-tags can raise similar trademark issues. Meta-tags are the hidden text on Web pages used to attract search engines. Problems can arise when a company uses the trademarked name of a competitor as a meta-tag.