• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, January 4, 2012

When the Huffington Post launched its new Parentlode blog, the company made several moves aimed at reeling in readers who were searching for The New York Times' Motherlode blog, the newspaper argues in recent court papers.

AOL's Huffington Post “originally placed metatags and keywords,” including the trademarked term Motherlode on its site, the Times alleges in papers filed late last year with the federal district court in New York. The Huffington Post also allegedly used “Motherlode” in “larger-than-normal text and formatted the 'Motherlode' trademark as a title, above the initial blog entry at the 'Parentlode' blog.'

The newspaper adds that Huffington Post stopped doing so after a request from the newspaper.

The Times filed its papers in an attempt to convince U.S. District Court Judge P. Kevin Castel to order the Huffington Post to rename the blog.

The dispute between the two media companies dates to last September, when longtime Motherlode writer Lisa Belkin jumped to the Huffington Post to author its new Parentlode blog. The Times says the name Parentlode infringes on the trademarked term Motherlode. The newspaper additionally argues that the Huffington Post fostered confusion in order to make it appear to readers that the Times' blog migrated to the Huffington Post.

For instance, the Times alleges, the inaugural Parentlode post linked back to Belkin's final Motherlode post. “To exacerbate the confusion, Ms. Belkin never updated the “Info” section of her Facebook page, where she states she is employed by The New York Times,” the newspaper adds.

The newspaper alleges that readers showed they were confused by re-tweeting the phrase "Motherlode" becomes "Parentlode" and by referring to Parentlode as a “popular blog poached from The New York Times.”

For its part, the Huffington Post denies that it infringed the Times trademark, although the blogging site acknowledged in court papers that it used “motherlode” as tags and keywords for a few days.