Article Co-Authored by Sojuzpatent's Head of IT Dmitry Grigoriev published in the materials of the scientific conference I2T-2019

Conceptual Layout of an Automated System for Monitoring of Intellectual Property Rights Violations

Gorshkov P.S., Lyaluk I.N., Grigoryev D.V.*

«Experimental laboratory Naukasoft» LLC, *«Sojuzpatent» LLC

Abstract — The article describes the conceptual layout of a prospective automated system for monitoring of intellectual property objects (ASM IPO). Its basis is a generalized structural-functional diagram of automated processes for collecting and processing of data in the ASM IPO. This automated system will allow prompt monitoring and detection of IP rights infringements.

Keywords — IP protection; intellectual property objects; intellectual property rights violations; fight unfair competition; automated system for monitoring IPO.

INTRODUCTION

The modern world economy is an innovative complex based on intellectual resources. Intellectual property (IP) is a key value generator for firms, helping them succeed in competitive markets. At the macroeconomic level, IP protection and enforcement are among the main drivers of innovation, which contributes to long-term economic growth.

Objects of intellectual property (IPO) include results of intellectual activity and means of individualization (MI), specifically trademarks, copyrights, patents, utility models, industrial designs, service marks, commercial designations, firm names, appellations of origin, etc. [1]

A trademark is a distinctive sign that identifies certain goods or services as those produced or provided by a specific person or enterprise. Trademarks may include words, personal names, letters, numerals, figurative elements and combinations of colors, as well as any combination of these signs. In general, trademark protection is geographically limited. Depending on the national law of a country, a trademark may be a registered or unregistered mark. The rights holder can prevent the unauthorized use of the trademark for goods or services that are identical or similar to those with a registered trademark, if there is a risk of confusion.

Copyright is a set of exclusive rights, subject to limitations, related to the creative works of authors. The rights pertain to, among others, the reproduction, distribution, translation and adaptation, public performance and communication to the public of the work. The kinds of works that may be covered by copyright include: literary works, such as novels, poems, and computer programs; musical works; works of visual art, such as paintings, drawings, photographs and sculpture; dramatic works, such as plays; films, and compilations, including databases.

A patent enables the patent holder to exclude unauthorized parties from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing the protected inventive subject matter. Patents are generally available for any inventions, whether products or processes, in all fields of technology, provided that they are new, involve an inventive step and are capable of industrial application. The criteria that are applied to determine patentability tend to vary among countries, as do the technical requirements that must be fulfilled in order for a patent to be granted.

Industrial design is defined as the outside appearance of a product. The design may consist of three-dimensional features, such as the shape or surface of a product, or of two-dimensional features, such as patterns, lines or color. Industrial designs are applied to a wide variety of products of industry and handicraft, including technical and medical instruments, watches and jewelry. An industrial design does not protect any technical functions of the article to which it is applied.

Trade in counterfeit and pirated goods is a major challenge in an innovation-driven global economy. These practices have negative effects on the sales and profits of affected firms, while also having adverse revenue, economic, health, safety and security effects for governments, businesses and consumers.

A wide range of products are affected, from luxury and business-to-business goods to common consumer products. Any product for which IP adds economic value for rights holders and creates price differentials becomes a target for counterfeiters. Counterfeit products range from high-end consumer luxury goods such as watches, perfumes or leather goods, to business-to-business products such as machines, chemicals or spare parts, to common consumer products such as toys, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and foodstuffs. Every IP-protected product can be counterfeited.

Introduction of a product illegally using means of individualization creates unfair competitive advantages consisting in free-riding on the IP owner’s reputation and prestige.

Unlawful use of someone else's results of intellectual activity or means of individualization does not only cause material damage to the lawful owner, but also undermines consumer confidence.

Russian legislation provides for administrative, civil and criminal liability for the manufacture and sale of counterfeit products.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Using statistical analysis and drawing on a global dataset covering customs data on almost half a million seizures, the study “Trade in Counterfeit and Pirated Goods: Mapping the Economic Impact” [2] estimates the huge share of international trade commandeered by counterfeit and pirated goods. In 2013, international trade in such products represented up to 2.5 percent of world trade, or as much as USD 461 billion. This is the equivalent of the GDP of Austria, or the combined GDP of Ireland and the Czech Republic. Above all, it highlights that rights holders, governments and the formal economy as a whole suffer significant economic and social losses. It also gives an idea of the potential financial revenues collected by the criminal networks that are behind such trade.

More specifically, counterfeit and pirated products amounted to up to 5 percent of European Union imports in 2013, or as much as EUR 85 billion (USD 116 billion). This suggests that the relative impact of counterfeiting is twice as high for a group of developed countries, such as the EU, than it is for the world as a whole.

A basic frequency value analysis of IP-infringing products reports [2] a wide range of item values: between 5 and 200 USD for a pair of counterfeit Nike shoes, 5 and 150 USD for counterfeit Ray Ban sunglasses, between 5 and 1500 USD for a counterfeit Louis Vuitton bag, and between 5 and 20 000 USD for a counterfeit Rolex watch (see Figure 1). As can be seen in Figure 1, some of the higher-value infringing products were intended for a primary sub-market, where a consumer is deceived and prices are equal or close to those of genuine footwear.

Figure 1 - Frequencies of values of counterfeit Nike shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses, Louis

Vuitton bags and Rolex watches.

Unregistered light industrial products with a combined value of more than 6 billion USD are sold in the Russian Federation each year. [3]

Counterfeit shares in various Russian markets, as estimated by the Ministry of Industry and Trade and industry associations, are shown in Figure 2. [3]

Figure 2 - Shares of counterfeit  goods in different Russian markets.

According to experts’ estimations, the scope of illegal turnover of products in the Russian consumer market is 2.5 trillion rubles. This is about 9% of the total retail turnover and 15% of sales in the surveyed retail markets (food, alcohol, tobacco products, light industry products, etc.).

In 2017, customs authorities initiated 1,072 cases of administrative offenses (AO) in the field of protection of intellectual property rights, 1,050 of which were cases of AO under article 14.10 of the Code of Administrative Offences the Russian Federation (illegal use of a trademark) and 22 of which were cases of AO under Part 1 of Article 7.12 of the Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation (violation of copyright and related rights). The penalties amounted to 167 million rubles. [4]

The most common subjects of offenses were: food packaging, souvenir products, confectionery, tobacco and alcohol products, pocket lighters, nonalcoholic drinks, closing means, cans, goods for the holidays, children's toys and sports goods.

Rights holders fight unfair competition in their market segments both independently and with the help of patent attorney firms. Such firms have great experience in the field of protection of intellectual rights and can provide substantial assistance.

However, traditional approaches to revealing IP rights infringement (collecting information when visiting popular shopping areas or individual stores, test purchases, photo and video recording, etc., as well as manually creating search queries on the Internet and processing search results to analyze the data on trading sites) are labor-intensive and inefficient in practice.

SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM

In order to effectively stand up against unfair competition, it is proposed to create an automated system that, in a monitoring mode, allows prompt detection of IP rights infringement.

In this article, the authors propose the conceptual layout of a prospective automated system for monitoring intellectual property objects (ASM IPO). Its basis is a generalized structural-functional diagram of automated processes for collecting and processing data in the ASM IPO (presented in Figure 3).

Activation of the functional processes of the system under consideration is based on accepting requests from clients. The prospective clients are manufacturers of goods (legal or natural persons) who have reasons to believe that their IP rights are being or may be violated.

Figure 3 - Automated system for monitoring IPO.

Each client provides an overview of a problem in a request filed with the ASM IPO specialists (for example, patent attorneys) to obtain information confirming (or disproving) their suspicions.

As the result of the analysis of requests, an expert creates search images of objects (trademarks, keywords, logos, slogans, images, content, etc.) which are relevant to the client’s request. Search images are used to customize pre-selective filters, by means of which automatic preliminary selection of relevant data is realized from a vast array of heterogeneous, unstructured information characterized by a high level of “noisiness” which is present in the data search space.

The space of data searches for possible violations of rights includes sources of information in the form of promotional products, traditional mass media and Internet resources. The information from Internet resources does not require additional conversion in order to realize procedures for preliminary selection (pre-selective filtering), and the information from advertising products and traditional mass media should first be converted into appropriate digital formats. It should be noted that an overwhelming amount of relevant data is contained on the Internet.

Pre-selective filtration of the information presented in the data search space is carried out in an automatic (background) mode, and results are gathered in the preselection database (PSDB). At the same time, all necessary reference information (network addresses, URLs, names of data sources, authors, publication date and time, etc.) should be contained in the PSDB, by means of which the expert can repeatedly apply filters to relevant sources in data search space at subsequent stages of analytic processing. Thus, an array of data which is relevant to the client's request is automatically formed, and becomes the basis for the subsequent step of expert analytical processing.

This step is realized by experts, starting with the procedure of iterative interactive (in interaction with clients) formation of search images of the IPO. The search images are used to customize post-processing filters, and contain semantics, a structural-functional technological scheme and an IP rights infringement ontology.

IP rights infringement semantics in a search image are formed by an expert (patent attorney) on the basis of his/her theoretical and practical knowledge about the essence of the IPO. They take the form of a collection of various data identification descriptors (keywords, terms, concepts, etc.) in data search space that are important for identifying possible IP rights infringement.

The structural-functional technological scheme is a comprehensive representation of each IPO in the form of a description of its structure, interrelationships of elements and functions performed, as well as the technologies necessary for its creation (production). The development of the structural-functional technological scheme is carried out by experts (patent attorneys) upon receipt of the application from the client. As a result of the accumulation of a large number of structural-functional technological schemes about various IPOs in the ASM IPO database, it becomes possible to reuse them repeatedly to form search images of IP rights infringements, which will significantly reduce the processing time for customer requests.

The particular IPO ontology in approach to the solving of the problem represented in this paper looks like the database projection state of attributes that correspond to desired IPO, constantly actualized through specific DBMS mechanisms.

Post-selective filtration of the information accumulated in the PSDB is also carried out in an automatic (background) mode. The results, containing information about violations of the rights of client-applicants, are saved in the post-selection database (POSDB).

With the help of special ASM IPO software, the experts carry out analytical processing of POSDB. The results obtained are in the form of data corresponding to the request filed, are sent to the client’s personal account, along with additional information in the form of reports on risk levels, missed profits, dumping prices, amounts of production and sales of counterfeit products, information about violators, etc.

СONCLUSION

Additional studies will be conducted on the conceptual layout of the developed ASM IPO presented. The purpose of research is to further clarify and detail the methods, models and algorithms for solving problems related to converting data on market goods and services contained in advertising production and media. Important tasks are: pre-selective and post-selective filtration algorithm improvement, expert analytical selection, specification and design of appropriate databases (PSDB and POSDB).

The authors believe that the proposed conceptual model of ASM IPO can be the basis for the development of different variants of systems of this class, used in the interests of corresponding state authorities (for example, Rospatent, the Federal Customs Service, etc.), firms of patent attorneys, and patent holders (legal and natural persons). At the same time, automated systems, despite significant differences in their scales, development costs, and composition of functional tasks, can represent specific implementations of special software (SSW). For example, SSW can be realized as mobile device software, personal computer software, special program-technical complexes and network services available via the Internet.

All of these systems will provide processing of the IPO monitoring databases created and updated on the basis of unified problem domain data models, detailing the conceptual layout of the system considered in this paper.

REFERENCES

1. CC RF Article 1225. Protected results of the intellectual activity and means of individualization // The Civil Code of the Russian Federation (the fourth part) of 18.12.2006 N 230-FZ (ed. of 23.05.2018)
2. OECD/EUIPO (2016), Trade in Counterfeit and Pirated Goods: Mapping the Economic Impact, Illicit Trade, OECD Publishing, Paris, [Internet-resource]// URL: https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264252653-en (date of use: 03.03.2019).
3. Ignatova O. Unexplainable but counterfeit [Internet-resource]// Rossiyskaya Gazeta – Federal issue № 86(7549). Updated: 22.04.2018 URL: https://rg.ru/2018/04/22/minpromtorg-v-rossii-kontrafakt-realizuetsia-cherez-legalnye-magaziny.html  (date of use: 03.03.2019)
4. Final report on the results and main directions of activity of the Federal Customs Service of Russia in 2017. [Internet-resource] // Website of the Federal Customs Service. Updated: 10.03.2018 URL: http://www.customs.ru/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=26323:-2017-&catid=475:2015-03-12-09-57-15&Itemid=2588  (date of use: 03.03.2019)