Content-based retrieval for trademark registration

With ever increasing number of registered trademarks, the task of trademark office is becoming increasingly difficult to ensure the uniqueness of all trademarks registered. Trademarks are complex patterns consisting of various image and text patterns, called device-mark and word-in-mark respectively. Due to the diversity and complexity of image patterns occurring in trademarks, due to multi-lingual word-in-mark, there is no very successful computerized operating trademark registration system. We have tackled key technical issues: multiple feature extraction methods to capture the shape, similarity of multi-lingual word-in-mark, matching device mark interpretation using fuzzy thesaurus, and fusion of multiple feature measures for conflict trademark retrieval. A prototype System for Trademark Archival and Registration (STAR) has been developed. The initial test run has been conducted using 3000 trademarks, and the results have shown satisfaction to trademark officers and specialists.