Multi-faceted Assessment of Trademark Similarity

Trademarks are intellectual property assets with potentially high reputational value. Their infringement may lead to lost revenue, lower profits and damages to brand reputation. A test normally conducted to check whether a trademark is highly likely to infringe other existing, already registered, trademarks is called a likelihood of confusion test. One of the most influential factors in this test is establishing similarity in appearance, meaning or sound. However, even though the trademark registration process suggests a multi-faceted similarity assessment, relevant research in expert systems mainly focuses on computing individual aspects of similarity between trademarks. Therefore, this paper contributes to the knowledge in this field by proposing a method, which, similar to the way people perceive trademarks, blends together the three fundamental aspects of trademark similarity and produces an aggregated score based on the individual visual, semantic and phonetic assessments. In particular, semantic similarity is a new aspect, which has not been considered by other researchers in approaches aimed at providing decision support in trademark similarity assessment. Another specific scientific contribution of this paper is the innovative integration, using a fuzzy engine, of three independent assessments, which collectively provide a more balanced and human-centered view on potential infringement problems. In addition, the paper introduces the concept of degree of similarity since the line between similar and dissimilar trademarks is not always easy to define especially when dealing with blending three very different assessments. The work described in the paper is evaluated using a database comprising 1,400 trademarks compiled from a collection of real legal cases of trademark disputes. The evaluation involved two experiments. The first experiment employed information retrieval measures to test the classification accuracy of the proposed method while the second used human collective opinion to examine correlations between the trademark scoring/rating and the ranking of the proposed method, and human judgment. In the first experiment, the proposed method improved the F-score, precision and accuracy of classification by 12.5%, 35% and 8.3%, respectively, against the best score computed using individual similarity. In the second experiment, the proposed method produced a perfect positive Spearman rank correlation score of 1.00 in the ranking task and a pairwise Pearson correlation score of 0.92 in the rating task. The test of significance conducted on both scores rejected the null hypotheses of the experiment and showed that both scores correlated well with collective human judgment. The combined overall assessment could add value to existing support systems and be beneficial for both trademark examiners and trademark applicants. The method could be further used in addressing recent cyberspace phenomena related to trademark infringement such as customer hijacking and cybersquatting. Keywords—Trademark assessment, trademark infringement, trademark retrieval, degree of similarity, fuzzy aggregation, semantic similarity, phonetic similarity, visual similarity

Brand Dilution: An Analysis of The IKEA Versus IKEMA Dispute

This study is aimed to provide a different analysis related to dispute of trademark or brand of IKEA against Ikema. IKEA in the Judicial Review Verdict of Indonesia Supreme Court of (Peninjauan Kembali Mahkamah Agung), was asserted not having similarity with Ikema. On the other hand, the author views this case is potentially presumed as as a dilution case. Regarding this, the analysis employs theory that proposed by Shuy (2002) to uncover the identical similarity between the two trademarks. Graphemic and Phonetic analysis are used to establish the feature similarity, for analysis of public perception upon the both trademarks, psycholinguistic has been practiced. The result is the both trademarks are similar in terms of dilution. Keywords: dispute, dilution, linguistic analysi

Trademarks, Triggers, and Online Search

Internet search engines display advertisements along with search results, providing them with a major source of revenue. The display of ads is triggered by the use of keywords, which are found in the searches performed by search engine users. The fact that advertisers can buy a keyword that contains a trademark they do not own has caused controversy worldwide. To explore the actual effects of trademark and keyword advertising policies, we exploit a natural experiment in Europe. Following a decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union, Google relaxed its AdWords policy in continental Europe in September 2010. After the policy change, Google allowed advertisers to select a third party's trademark as a keyword to trigger the display of ads, with only a limited complaint procedure for trademark owners. We use click-stream data from European Internet users to explore the effect this policy change had on browsing behavior. Based on a data set of 5.38 million website visits before and after the policy change, we find little average change. However, we present evidence that this lack of average effect stems from an aggregation of two opposing effects. While navigational searches are less likely to lead to the trademark owner's website, non-navigational searches are more likely to lead to the trademark owner's website after the policy change. The effect of changing keyword advertising policies varies with the purpose of the consumers using the trademark, and it is more pronounced for lesser-known trademarks. The article points to tradeoffs trademark policy is facing beyond consumer confusion. More generally, the article proposes a novel way of analyzing the effect of different allocations of property rights in intellectual property law

CHORUS Deliverable 2.2: Second report - identification of multi-disciplinary key issues for gap analysis toward EU multimedia search engines roadmap

After addressing the state-of-the-art during the first year of Chorus and establishing the existing landscape in multimedia search engines, we have identified and analyzed gaps within European research effort during our second year. In this period we focused on three directions, notably technological issues, user-centred issues and use-cases and socio- economic and legal aspects. These were assessed by two central studies: firstly, a concerted vision of functional breakdown of generic multimedia search engine, and secondly, a representative use-cases descriptions with the related discussion on requirement for technological challenges. Both studies have been carried out in cooperation and consultation with the community at large through EC concertation meetings (multimedia search engines cluster), several meetings with our Think-Tank, presentations in international conferences, and surveys addressed to EU projects coordinators as well as National initiatives coordinators. Based on the obtained feedback we identified two types of gaps, namely core technological gaps that involve research challenges, and “enablers”, which are not necessarily technical research challenges, but have impact on innovation progress. New socio-economic trends are presented as well as emerging legal challenges

Information Outlook, April 2007

Volume 11, Issue 4https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_io_2007/1003/thumbnail.jp

Debunking Dilution Doctrine: Toward a Coherent Theory of the Anti-Free-Rider Principle in American Trademark Law

This Article argues that while American dilution law purports to be about preventing dilutive harm, it really is about preventing free-riding on famous marks. Because of this mismatch between dilution\u27s stated purpose and hidden goal, it is a clumsy and largely incoherent doctrinal device. It does not allow judges to turn the anti-free-riding impulse into a carefully circumscribed set of principles with identifiable limits. This Article argues that it would be better to scrap dilution altogether and replace it with an independent cause of action that explicitly prevents free-riding in appropriate circumstances

Algorithmic Accountability in the Administrative State

How will artificial intelligence (AI) transform government? Stemming from a major study commissioned by the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), we highlight the promise and trajectory of algorithmic tools used by federal agencies to perform the work of governance. Moving past the abstract mappings of transparency measures and regulatory mechanisms that pervade the current algorithmic accountability literature, our analysis centers around a detailed technical account of a pair of current applications that exemplify AI’s move to the center of the redistributive and coercive power of the state: the Social Security Administration’s use of AI tools to adjudicate disability benefits cases and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s use of AI tools to target enforcement efforts under federal securities law. We argue that the next generation of work will need to push past a narrow focus on constitutional law and instead engage with the broader terrain of administrative law, which is far more likely to modulate use of algorithmic governance tools going forward

Towards Cross-Border Innovation Spaces: A theoretical analysis and empirical comparison of the Öresund region and the Centrope area

Due to strong regionalization tendencies in many parts of the world, the political collapse in Central and Eastern Europe and the continuing enlargement of the European Union crossborder regions have grown considerably in number and importance in the last years. There is a widespread agreement in the academic literature that in the emerging globalized knowledge economy the competitive strength of these areas increasingly rests on their capacity to create an integrated innovation space. The focus of this paper is on a theoretical analysis of different stages in the development of cross-border regional innovation systems and on a comparative analysis of the innovation capabilities of two cross-border areas in Europe, the Öresund region, composed of Southern Sweden and Eastern Denmark, and the Centrope area, which is located at the intersection of Austria, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Hungary. Departing from the regional innovation system approach, in a first step we will identify conceptually crucial preconditions and key determinants for the rise of transfrontier innovation systems. From an evolutionary perspective cross-border regional innovation systems could be seen as the last and most advanced form of cross-border integration building on the success of previous incremental but less advanced modes of integration. We will discuss a conceptual framework describing the different stages of such a process and we will examine how the prospects for a successful development vary between different geographical settings. This is followed by a comparative analysis of the innovation capacity of the Öresund region and the Centrope area. A special emphasis will be given on comparing the interplay of critical economic, socioinstitutional and political factors, and the main barriers for establishing a cross-border regional innovation system. Our results suggest that the Öresund region and the Centrope area differ enormously regarding their capacity to develop an integrated innovation space.