New York Times and Huffington Post Settle Parenting Blog Case

(Reuters) -- Goodbye, Parentlode.

New York Times Co., which has a parenting blog known as Motherlode, has agreed to settle a lawsuit against the Huffington Post after that site decided to change the name of its new Parentlode blog.

The settlement came two weeks after Lisa Belkin, who had overseen Motherlode and started Parentlode in October after joining AOL Inc.'s Huffington Post, said she would drop the Parentlode name and hold a contest for readers to pick a new one.

Eileen Murphy, a Times spokeswoman, said we are in final settlement discussions with the Huffington Post. She called the name change a victory for all creators of original intellectual property.

An AOL spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Terms of the agreement in principle were not disclosed. Both companies are based in New York.

The Times had accused Belkin of intentionally naming her new blog to confuse readers into believing it was the same virtual koffee klatch for parenting as her old blog.

It said it asked Huffington Post Editor in Chief Arianna Huffington to change the name of the new blog to something more original, but that she declined.

In announcing the contest on Dec. 22, Belkin said we could keep fighting the suit, over a name that, frankly, we never really loved. But she said that would mean having to deal with lawyers and missing her mother's wedding in Arizona.

Mom is not keen on that idea, she wrote.

The contest winner gets a trip to New York, a tour of the Huffington Post newsroom, and a one-year digital subscription to the Times.

Huffington Post said entries will be judged as follows: Describes the Parental Nature of the blog: 50 percent; Makes Us Smile: 25 percent; Makes Us Say Eureka: 25 percent.

The case is The New York Times Co v. AOL Inc et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 11-07921.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Richard Chang)