2 research outputs found
Trade mark similarity assessment support system
Trade marks are valuable intangible intellectual property (IP) assets with potentially
high reputational value that can be protected. Similarity between trade marks may
potentially lead to infringement. That similarity is normally assessed based on the
visual, conceptual and phonetic aspects of the trade marks in question. Hence, this
thesis addresses this issue by proposing a trade mark similarity assessment support
system that uses the three main aspects of trade mark similarity as a mechanism to
avoid future infringement.
A conceptual model of the proposed trade mark similarity assessment support
system is first proposed and developed based on the similarity assessment criteria
outlined in a trade mark manual. The proposed model is the first contribution of this
study, and it consists of visual, conceptual, phonetic and inference engine modules.
The second contribution of this work is an algorithm that compares trade
marks based on their visual similarity. The algorithm performs a similarity
assessment using content-based image retrieval (CBIR) technology and an
integrated visual descriptor derived using the low-level image feature, i.e. the shape
feature. The performance of the algorithm is then assessed using information
retrieval based measures. The obtained result demonstrates better retrieval
performance in comparison to the state of the art algorithm.
The conceptual aspect of trade mark similarity is then examined and analysed
using a proposed algorithm that employs semantic technology in the conceptual
module. This contribution enables the computation of the conceptual similarity
between trade marks, with the utilisation of an external knowledge source in the
form of a lexical ontology, together with natural language processing and set
similarity theory. The proposed algorithm is evaluated using both information
VI
retrieval and human collective opinion measures. The retrieval result produced by
the proposed algorithm outperforms the traditional string similarity comparison
algorithm in both measures.
The phonetic module examines the phonetic similarity of trade marks using
another proposed algorithm that utilises phoneme analysis. This algorithm employs
phonological features, which are extracted based on human speech articulation. In
addition, the algorithm also provides a mechanism to compare the phonetic aspect
of trade marks with typographic characters. The proposed algorithm is the fourth
contribution of this study. It is evaluated using an information retrieval based
measure. The result shows better retrieval performance in comparison to the
traditional string similarity algorithm.
The final contribution of this study is a methodology to aggregate the overall
similarity score between trade marks. It is motivated by the understanding that trade
mark similarity should be assessed holistically; that is, the visual, conceptual and
phonetic aspects should be considered together. The proposed method is
developed in the inference engine module; it utilises fuzzy logic for the inference
process. A set of fuzzy rules, which consists of several membership functions, is
also derived in this study based on the trade mark manual and a collection of trade
mark disputed cases is analysed. The method is then evaluated using both
information retrieval and human collective opinion. The proposed method improves
the retrieval accuracy and the experiment also proves that the aggregated similarity
score correlates well with the score produced from human collective opinion.
The evaluations performed in the course of this study employ the following
datasets: the MPEG-7 shape dataset, the MPEG-7 trade marks dataset, a collection
of 1400 trade marks from real trade mark dispute cases, and a collection of 378,943
company names