Intellectual Property: eMARKS / eMage and LTU engine

The eMAGE service brings to intellectual property professionals a subscriber-accessible web application for research concerning trademarks and industrial designs.  Typical use of the eMAGE system is to determine if an individual trademark or design is already registered with one or more official industrial property offices of the European Union.

image similarity search – users may submit a digital images as one of the search criteria of their search. natural language textual search – users may search for registered records by using natural language textual descriptions.   Textual search criteria may be entered in four different languages (English, French, German, Portuguese), with automatic translation of search terms .

“Research” in the eMAGE application means looking within various international databases for records that may be identical or similar to the record being studied.

For example, an enterprise is considering adopting a new official logo.  Before doing so, the enterprise wants to check if a similar logo has already been registered.

Another example:  a customs official is investigating a shipment of suspect goods, which are possibly counterfeit products which imitate a well-known brand.  The official wants to verify if the branding logos on the suspect goods are identical to be registered logos and trademarks of the brand name displayed in the records.

	REGISTERED TRADEMARKS AND INTELLECTUAL DESIGN DATABASES

 The repositories of information are databases of images and textual information which have been created by Intellectual Property Organizations (IPOs) , sucha as patent offices and other agencies .   These databases are collectively known as “RTID databases” (Registered Trademarks and Intellectual Design databases).

The eMAGE slogan:  “Now searching Trademarks and Industrial Designs is easier and faster than ever with the eMAGE service.

Service Availability:   Service is available for test to eMARKS partners and selected professionals qualified and trained for these tests since May 2008. 

SCOPE OF THE PROJECT

Via a single portal, users will have access to 1,2 million records

The RTID databases already combined by the project include these collections:

UNIQUE FEATURES:    IMAGE SEARCH AND MULTI-LINGUAL NATURAL LANGUAGE SEARCH

eMAGE's unique characteristics is the provision of an image and natural language, multi-lingual interface for searching the mass of Trademarks/Industrial Designs registered with the EU Industrial Properties Offices.

More specifically, a user of the eMAGE service will be able to identify whether a Trademark/Industrial Design is already registered with an EU Industrial Properties Office or not, by submitting to the service a digital photo of the Trademark/Industrial Design in question.

The image search technology is provided by LTU technologies.

Searching against the mass of content registered with the EU Industrial Properties Offices can be further optimized by allowing the eMAGE user to further qualify the search by natural language, multi-lingual semantic categories of interest.

The natural language, multi-lingual search is provided by Lingway.

Project History:  The eMARKS project builds upon eMAGE, a previous European Commission project under the auspices of e-Content, which successfully tested the basic concepts of the service.  eMARKS is co-funded through the eTen program of the European Community (eTEN:  “The European Community eTEN program helps to stimulate the deployment of innovative, trans-European e-services of social or economic interest.  These services are intended to contribute to growth within the European Union, employment, social cohesion, and to help everyone participate in the new knowledge-based economy”).

Recent 2008 activities in the eMARKS project include updates to the user interface, database optimization, and preparation for the opening of the system for the first round of application testing by the partner organizations.

The initial eMAGE working prototype was successfully trialed by more than 81 Trademark and Industrial design professionals and experts in 4 locations (France, Portugal, Austria and Hungary) during a one-year period.
Project Partners:

The eMARKS project consortium consists of 8 partners each contributing their own particular technical and business capabilities necessary for the successful accomplishment of the projects objectives.

CONSORTIUM PARTNERS

The Consortium is led by INTRASOFT International (INTRA) and consists of the following partners:

PROJECT  WEB SITE
http://emarks.iisa-innov.com/index.html