JP2023015784A - Ai trademark survey system, information processing device, information processing method, and information processing program - Google Patents

Abstract

To provide a trademark survey system capable of reducing labor and time in surveying the possibility of performing trademark registration in the case of performing a trademark survey, and a trademark registration application in particular.SOLUTION: A trademark survey system performs a distinctiveness determination for determining that the received trademark has or lacks distinctiveness, and a similarity/dissimilarity determination for acquiring application registration information having a trademark being the same as or similar to the received trademark and having goods and service being the same as or similar to the received goods and service, and outputs determination results. The distinctiveness determination performs at least one of a step for determining that characters included in the received trademark have or lack distinctiveness without considering a relation to the received goods and service, and a step for determining that the characters have or lack distinctiveness by considering the relation to the received goods and service. The similarity/dissimilarity determination is performed with use of the received trademark and the received goods and service with the information stored in storage means as an object.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1

Description

The present invention relates to a trademark search system, an information processing device, an information processing method, and an information processing program.

In recent years, the importance of intellectual property has increased more and more, and for example, the importance of trademarks has increased more and more from the viewpoint of brand strategy and the like. In order to realize the brand strategy, it is necessary to apply for trademark registration in a timely manner and acquire trademark rights.

On the other hand, as the number of applications for trademark registration to obtain trademark rights increases, the labor involved in trademark searches is also increasing. Trademark searches include, for example, checking whether a trademark to be registered has distinctiveness, and whether identical or similar trademarks have been applied for or registered. Such a trademark search is very troublesome and time-consuming, so there is a strong demand for a technology that can reduce the trouble and time.

Patent Document 1 discloses an information processing device that performs a web search for a trademark character string and performs a similarity search using information on the pronunciation of the trademark character string. It is disclosed to search whether it is in a non-distinguishable dictionary or the like. According to Patent Document 1, it is possible to provide information that serves as comprehensive criteria for determining the registrability of a trademark.

JP 2012-58980 A

However, in Patent Document 1, a WEB search is performed for trademark character strings, which is still insufficient to reduce the labor and time required for trademark searches. If a WEB search is performed using a trademark character string, even information irrelevant to the registrability of the trademark is acquired, and it takes time and effort to scrutinize it. In addition, when examining the registrability of trademarks, it is necessary to consider not only the similarity of trademarks but also the similarity of goods and services. It takes time to consider similarity.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a trademark search system capable of reducing labor and time required for trademark searches, particularly for investigating the possibility of trademark registration when a trademark registration application is filed.

In order to solve the above problems, the trademark search system of the present invention includes: a reception unit that receives trademarks containing characters and goods or services; a similarity determining unit that uses the trademark and the goods or services and performs similarity determination on the information stored in the storage means; and an output unit for outputting a result of a negative judgment, wherein the storage means stores information on trademark registration applications and/or trademark registrations as application registration information, and the application registration information includes trademark registration applications. or a trademark related to trademark registration and designated goods and/or designated services, wherein the trademark received by the reception unit is defined as a received trademark, the goods or services received by the reception unit are defined as received goods and services, and the storage means When the trademark stored in the storage means is the stored trademark, and the designated goods and designated services stored in the storage means are the stored goods and services, the distinctiveness determination unit determines whether characters included in the received trademark are the received goods and services. A first step of judging whether or not there is distinctiveness without taking into account the relationship between 2, wherein the similarity determination unit has the stored trademark that is the same as or similar to the received trademark, and the stored trademark that is the same or similar to the received goods and services The application registration information having goods and services is obtained, and the output unit outputs the application registration information obtained by the similarity determination unit as a similarity determination result of the similarity determination unit.

According to the present invention, it is possible to reduce the labor and time required for trademark research, particularly for researching the possibility of trademark registration when a trademark registration application is filed.

It is a figure which shows an example of the trademark search system of this invention. It is a figure which shows an example of an input screen. It is a figure which shows an example of an output screen. FIG. 11 is a diagram showing another example of an output screen;

Hereinafter, a trademark search system, an information processing device, an information processing method, and an information processing program according to the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. In addition, the present invention is not limited to the embodiments shown below, and can be changed within the scope of those skilled in the art, such as other embodiments, additions, modifications, deletions, etc. is also included in the scope of the present invention as long as the functions and effects of the present invention are exhibited.

The trademark search system of the present invention comprises a reception unit that receives trademarks containing characters and goods or services;
a distinctiveness determination unit that determines whether characters included in the trademark have distinctiveness;
a similarity determination unit that uses the trademark and the goods or services and performs similarity determination on the information stored in the storage means;
an output unit for outputting a result of judgment by the discriminating power judgment unit and a result of similarity judgment by the similarity judgment unit;
The storage means stores information relating to trademark registration applications and/or trademark registrations as application registration information, and the application registration information includes trademarks pertaining to trademark registration applications or trademark registrations and designated goods and/or designated services. is included and
The trademark received by the reception unit is defined as a received trademark, the goods or services received by the reception unit are defined as received goods and services, the trademarks stored in the storage means are stored trademarks, and the specified goods and services stored in the storage means are stored. When designated services are stored goods services,
The distinguishing power judging unit comprises: a first distinguishing power judging step of judging whether or not characters contained in the accepted trademark have distinguishing power without taking into consideration the relationship with the accepted goods and services; perform at least one of a second distinctiveness judgment step of judging the presence or absence of distinctiveness in consideration of the relationship with the received product service,
The similarity determination unit acquires the application registration information having the stored trademark identical or similar to the received trademark and having the stored merchandise service identical or similar to the received merchandise service,
The output unit outputs the application registration information acquired by the similarity determination unit as a result of similarity determination by the similarity determination unit.

The information processing apparatus of the present invention comprises a reception unit that receives trademarks containing characters and goods or services;
a distinctiveness determination unit that determines whether characters included in the trademark have distinctiveness;
a similarity determination unit that uses the trademark and the goods or services and performs similarity determination on the information stored in the storage means;
an output unit for outputting a result of judgment by the discriminating power judgment unit and a result of similarity judgment by the similarity judgment unit;
The storage means stores information relating to trademark registration applications and/or trademark registrations as application registration information, and the application registration information includes trademarks pertaining to trademark registration applications or trademark registrations and designated goods and/or designated services. is included and
The trademark received by the reception unit is defined as a received trademark, the goods or services received by the reception unit are defined as received goods and services, the trademarks stored in the storage means are stored trademarks, and the specified goods and services stored in the storage means are stored. When designated services are stored goods services,
The distinguishing power judging unit comprises: a first distinguishing power judging step of judging whether or not characters contained in the accepted trademark have distinguishing power without taking into consideration the relationship with the accepted goods and services; perform at least one of a second distinctiveness judgment step of judging the presence or absence of distinctiveness in consideration of the relationship with the received product service,
The similarity determination unit acquires the application registration information having the stored trademark identical or similar to the received trademark and having the stored merchandise service identical or similar to the received merchandise service,
The output unit outputs the application registration information acquired by the similarity determination unit as a result of similarity determination by the similarity determination unit.

FIG. 1 is a diagram for explaining the trademark search system of this embodiment. In the drawing, an information processing device 10, a storage means 31, a user 40, and a terminal 41 are shown. Note that the arrows in the figure schematically indicate the flow of data, instructions, and the like.

The user 40 is not particularly limited, and can be used as appropriate, for example, a corporation, an individual, an organization, etc. Examples include a country, a company, a patent office, and other offices. Although it is referred to as a user, it may also be referred to as a user, administrator, user, target person, or the like. Also, the terminal 41 may be a PC, a smart phone, a tablet, or the like.

The information processing apparatus 10 of the present embodiment includes a reception unit 11, an identification power determination unit 12, a similarity determination unit 13, an output unit 14, and, if necessary, an update unit 15, a registration possibility determination unit 16, and the like. are doing. The information processing apparatus 10 of this embodiment is not limited to such a configuration, and can be modified as appropriate. The illustrated example is an example including other embodiments than this embodiment. The trademark search system of the present embodiment may include the information processing device 10, and the trademark search system of the present embodiment may include a reception unit 11, a distinguishing power determination unit 12, a similarity determination unit 13, an output unit 14, and the like. may have

<Reception Department>
The accepting unit 11 accepts trademarks including characters and goods or services.
Hereinafter, the trademark received by the reception unit 11 is also referred to as the received trademark, and the goods or services received by the reception unit 11 are also referred to as received goods and services.

In this embodiment, the received trademark and the received goods and services are received from the terminal 41 operated by the user 40, but the present invention is not limited to this. The user 40 may directly input to the information processing apparatus 10 by providing the information processing apparatus 10 with an input means or the like. Further, another device may be provided between the terminal 41 and the information processing device 10, and the received trademark and the received goods and services may be received via the other device. In addition, even when the received trademark and received goods and services are acquired due to the information processing apparatus 10, it corresponds to the acceptance of the name of the goods or the name of the services.

A communication method between the terminal 41 and the information processing device 10 is not particularly limited, and can be changed as appropriate. Communication may be performed via the Internet or the like, or may be communicated by wire or wirelessly.

The received goods and services are not limited to, for example, those described in the examination standards stipulated by the Patent Office. It may be the name of a product or service that you are considering registering as a trademark, the name of a product or service that you plan to conduct a trademark search for, or the name of a product or service related to your business or that of another company. There may be.

FIG. 2 shows an example of the input screen. The user 40 enters a trademark in the trademark entry field 61 and enters goods or services in the goods/services entry field 62 . Next, the execute button 63 is pressed. As a result, the reception unit 11 receives the trademark input by the user 40 as the accepted trademark, and accepts the entered goods or services as the accepted goods and services.

Acceptable trademarks include, for example, character strings, and characters include hiragana, katakana, kanji, alphabets, numbers, or a combination thereof. Also, as will be described later, the received trademark may be an image. If the received trademark is an image, extract the characters included in the image. The character extraction may be performed by the reception unit 11 or may be performed by others.

<Distinguishing ability judgment part>
The distinctiveness determination unit 12 determines whether characters included in the accepted trademark have distinctiveness. Hereinafter, it may be referred to as "the distinctiveness of characters included in the accepted trademark" or "the distinctiveness of the accepted trademark".
The distinguishing power judgment unit 12 judges whether or not the characters included in the accepted trademark have distinguishing power without taking into account the relationship with the accepted goods and services; At least one of a second distinguishing power judgment step of judging presence or absence of distinguishing power in consideration of the relationship with the received goods and services is performed.

<<First discriminating power judgment step>>
First, the first distinguishing power judgment step for judging the existence or non-existence of distinguishing power of characters included in the accepted trademark without considering the relationship with the accepted goods and services will be described.

In the first distinctiveness determination step, for example, it is determined whether the received trademark corresponds to a trademark listed in Article 3, Paragraph 1, Item 5 of the Trademark Act, and if so, the received trademark is not distinctive. I judge. To determine whether a trademark falls under Article 3, Paragraph 1, Item 5 of the Trademark Law, for example, determine whether the following cases apply.

・The accepted trademark is only one Roman character (for example, “A”)
・Only 2 Roman letters (e.g. “AB”)
・Numbers only (e.g. "123")
・Only two Roman characters connected with a hyphen "-" (eg "A-B")
・Only one or two Roman letters followed by a number (e.g. “A123”, “AB123”)
・Only numbers followed by a combination of one or two Roman letters (e.g. “123A”, “123AB”)
・Only one kana character (for example, "a")
・Among kana characters, only those that are recognized as displaying the sound of one romaji character (e.g. "ei")
- Among kana characters, only those that are recognizable as displaying sounds generated from one-digit or two-digit numbers (e.g., "toelve" and "juni")
・Only kana characters that are recognized as displaying sounds that normally occur from three-digit numbers (e.g., "five hundred and ten")
・Only one letter in romaji with the sound written in kana (e.g. "Aei")
・Only one- or two-digit numbers accompanied by the sounds produced by them (e.g. "1 ichi", "12 jun")

As a method for judging whether a received trademark is a trademark listed in Article 3, Paragraph 1, Item 5 of the Trademark Law, it is possible to select an appropriate method, and even if a judgment process is provided in the program, Alternatively, a list in which words with no distinctiveness are registered may be used. When using a list, there is no need to modify the program when the method of determination is changed, which is advantageous in terms of maintainability.

Here, the case of using the list (also simply called list) will be described.
In the first distinctiveness determination step, it is checked whether the characters included in the accepted trademark are included in the list of registered words that lack distinctiveness. Here, "investigate" may also be referred to as comparing, retrieving, determining, or the like. As a result of such examination, if the characters included in the accepted trademark consist only of the words included in the list, it is determined that the accepted trademark is not distinctive.

Words registered in the list include, for example, the above trademarks or marks (eg, "A", "AB", "123", etc.). For example, if the accepted trademark is "AB", the list is searched in the first distinctiveness determination step, and since it matches "AB" registered in the list, the accepted trademark has distinctiveness. is judged not to exist.

Words to be registered in the list can be appropriately selected in addition to the above. For example, it is possible to register a trademark that was found to be non-distinctive in the examination of past trademark registration applications.

Note that the list may be owned by the information processing device 10, may be outside the information processing device 10, or may be outside the system. Also, the storage means 31 may have a list.

Trademarks consisting only of numerals, trademarks consisting of one or two Roman letters followed by numerals, and trademarks consisting of numerals followed by one or two Roman letters, Since there are an infinite number of combinations of numbers, it is not realistic to register them in a list. Therefore, when a list is used, for example, a program is provided with a process for determining whether or not the trademark is applicable to the trademark, and then it is checked whether the trademark is included in the list. Alternatively, after examining whether the characters included in the accepted trademark are included in the list, it is determined whether or not they correspond to these trademarks.

<<Second distinguishing power judgment step>>
Next, the second distinguishing power judgment step of judging the presence or absence of distinguishing power in consideration of the relationship between the characters included in the accepted trademark and the accepted goods and services will be described.

In the second distinctiveness determination step, for example, if the accepted trademark corresponds to the trademark listed in Article 3, Paragraph 1, Items 1 to 3 of the Trademark Law, it is determined that the trademark is not distinctive. Examples of such trademarks include, but are not limited to, the following.

・ Regarding the reception product service “Sunny lettuce”, the reception trademark “Sunny lettuce”
・Regarding the reception product service “smartphone”, the reception trademark “smartphone”
・Regarding the received product service “personal computer”, the received trademark “PC”
・Regarding the reception product service “bag”, the reception trademark “bag”
・Regarding the reception product service “beauty”, the reception trademark “beauty”
・Regarding the reception product service “providing accommodation facilities”, the reception trademark “Kanko Hotel”

As a method for judging whether a received trademark falls under, for example, Article 3, Paragraph 1, Items 1 to 3 of the Trademark Act, it is possible to select an appropriate method, and a judging process is provided in the program. may In addition, a list (also referred to as list (2), etc. to distinguish from the above) registered as a set of goods or services and non-distinctive trademarks for those goods or services may be used, A trained model obtained by machine learning may be used. Among these, it is preferable to use a trained model from the viewpoint of maintainability and accuracy.

Here, a case where a learned model obtained by machine learning is used in the second discrimination power determination step will be described.
A learned model can be created by performing machine learning using a known dictionary, for example, a dictionary on the web. A trained model obtained by machine learning, for example, accepts the received product service and the received trademark as input, obtains the attributes of the received product service and the attribute of the received trademark, judges whether the attributes of both are similar, and makes that judgment. Print the result. If the attributes of the two are similar, it is determined that the received trademark has no distinctiveness due to the relationship with the received goods and services. An attribute is represented by, for example, a multidimensional vector, and the closeness between both attributes is obtained by, for example, the distance between the vectors.

For example, enter "smartphone" as a received product service and "smartphone" as a received trademark in the trained model. Next, the trained model obtains the attribute (vector) of "smartphone" and the attribute of "smartphone". Next, the two determined attributes are compared to determine their closeness. The closeness between the two can be obtained, for example, by calculating the vector distance. If the closeness between the two is equal to or less than a predetermined threshold value, the judgment result that the attributes are close is output. For example, since the determination result is output that the attributes of "smartphone" and "smartphone" are similar, the distinctiveness determination unit 12 determines that the accepted trademark "smartphone" does not have distinctiveness for the accepted product service "smartphone".

It should be noted that the trained model does not care which one is the received product service or the received trademark as an input.

The machine learning method is not particularly limited, and for example, a neural network, SVM (support vector machine), etc. can be used. The machine learning may be performed by the information processing device 10 or another device, and the discriminating power determination unit 12 may use a model learned by another device. Machine learning may be supervised learning or unsupervised learning.

<<First discriminating power judgment step and second discriminating power judgment step>>
The discriminating power judgment unit 12 performs at least one of the first discriminating power judging process and the second distinguishing power judging process. There are no particular restrictions on which step is performed, and in what cases both steps are performed, and can be selected as appropriate.

For example, if it is determined that there is no distinctiveness in the first characteristic judgment step, the second characteristic judgment step may not be performed. In this case, if it is judged that the first distinctiveness judgment process does not have distinctiveness, it can be said that the received trademark has no distinctiveness regardless of the goods or services, and the second distinctiveness judgment process is omitted. be able to.

On the other hand, the case where only the second discrimination power determination step is performed is not particularly limited, but for example, creating learning data according to a rule-based pattern and sufficiently learning the data A model is created by , and judgment is made only in the second discriminating power judgment step using this model.

From the above, although not particularly limited, it is preferable that the distinguishing power determination unit 12 performs both the first distinguishing power determining step and the second distinguishing power determining step. In this case, it is more preferable to perform the first distinctiveness determination step and, if it is determined in the first distinctiveness determination step that the received trademark has distinctiveness, perform the second distinctiveness determination step. The case where the received trademark is determined to have distinctiveness in the first distinctiveness determination step is, in other words, the case where the received trademark is not determined to have no distinctiveness.

In the first distinctiveness determination step, since the relationship with the received goods and services is not considered, it is relatively easy to determine whether the received trademark has distinctiveness. On the other hand, in the second distinctiveness determination step, since the relationship with the received goods and services is taken into account, it may not be possible to clearly determine whether or not the received trademark has distinctiveness. In the second step of determining distinctiveness, for example, if list (2) above is used, it may be easier to clearly state whether or not the received trademark has distinctiveness, but if list (2) above is not used, In some cases, it may not be possible to clearly state whether or not the received trademark has distinctiveness. For this reason, the distinguishing power judging section 12 judges whether or not characters included in the accepted trademark have distinguishing power. It may be used as a judgment result. For example, a numerical value from 0 to 100 may be used as the determination result.

Any numerical value can be selected as appropriate. For example, as described above, when using a trained model in the second distinguishing power judgment step, an attribute represented by a multidimensional vector is obtained, and the closeness of the attributes of the received goods and services and the received trademark, for example, the vector distance is calculated. It may be obtained and used as the above arbitrary numerical value.

<< Word decomposition >>
The distinctiveness determination unit 12 may determine the presence or absence of distinctiveness with respect to the received trademark as a single word, or may decompose the received trademark into words and determine whether or not each word has distinctiveness. good.

For example, if the received trademark is "Osaka apparel shirt", it may be broken down into "Osaka", "apparel", and "shirt", and the presence or absence of distinctiveness may be determined for each word. In order to determine whether or not each word has distinctiveness, at least one of the first distinctiveness determination step and the second distinctiveness determination step is performed for each word in the same manner as described above.

In the above example, for example, "Osaka" corresponds to the place of production of the product and is judged to have no distinctiveness. For example, when the received goods and services are "clothes", etc., "shirt" is judged to have no distinctiveness. In the above example, the accepted trademark "Osaka Apparel Shirts" is judged to have no distinctiveness when the accepted goods and services are "clothes", "shirts", and the like. However, in cases where the received goods and services are other than "clothes" and "shirts", etc., even the above-mentioned received trademarks may have distinctive power.

Further, when words are decomposed, the discriminating power may be determined for each combination of words. In the above example, "Osaka apparel", "Osaka apparel", and "apparel shirt" are listed as word combinations, and the distinguishing power of each of these word combinations may be determined and the result may be output. .

As a method for decomposing the received trademark into words, for example, a method using a known morphological analysis technique can be used. Note that the discriminative power determination unit 12 may perform word decomposition, or the others may perform word decomposition.

<Similarity judgment part>
The similarity determination unit 13 performs similarity determination on the information stored in the storage unit 31 using the received trademark and the received product/service.

The storage means 31 stores information on trademark registration applications and/or trademark registrations as application registration information. In addition, the application registration information includes trademarks related to trademark registration applications or trademark registrations, designated goods and/or designated services, and, if necessary, classifications related to trademark registration applications or trademark registrations. Hereinafter, the trademarks stored in the storage means 31 will be referred to as stored trademarks, and the designated goods and designated services stored in the storage means 31 will be referred to as stored goods and services.

In addition to the above, the application registration information may include, for example, an application number, a registration number, the applicant's name, name, address, residence, identification number, and the like. Also, the stored trademark may be a character string, or may be an image as described later.

The storage unit 31 may be included in the information processing device 10 or may be provided outside the information processing device 10 . For example, it may be provided on the cloud. Communication means between the information processing apparatus 10 and the storage means 31 is not particularly limited, and can be changed as appropriate. Communication may be performed via the Internet or the like, or may be communicated by wire or wirelessly. Also, the number of storage means 31 may be one, or may be plural.

The storage means 31 can be, for example, a database created based on information published by the Patent Office, and can be used as an intellectual property standard database or the like. The storage means 31 can acquire, for example, patent gazette data, standardization data, patent information standard data, etc. published by the Patent Office, and refer to them to store information on intellectual property. In addition to this, information published and sold by private organizations may be used. Information published by the Patent Office or the like is published periodically, and the number of records stored in the storage means 31 increases.

In this embodiment, an updating unit 15 (name is arbitrary) that updates the information in the storage means 31 may be included. Note that updating may also be referred to as registering, inputting, storing, changing, editing, etc., and is not limited to adding or creating information in the storage means 31, but changing or editing information in the storage means 31. and deletion of information in the storage means 31, and the like.

A method for updating the information in the storage means 31 can be selected as appropriate. For example, it may be updated using a form from a browser, or may be updated directly using SQL or the like. Alternatively, the receiving unit 11 may receive information from a user or administrator, and the updating unit 15 may update the storage unit 31 based on this information.

The similarity determination unit 13 acquires application registration information that has a stored trademark that is the same as or similar to the received trademark and that has a stored product service that is the same or similar to the received product service.

Any suitable method can be selected to check whether the received trademark and the stored trademark are the same or similar. Also, the method for checking whether the received product service and the stored product service are the same or similar can be selected as appropriate. For example, the received trademark and the stored trademark may be compared on a text basis to check whether there is an identical stored trademark. Further, it is also possible to compare the received product service and the stored product service on a text basis to check whether there is the same stored trademark.

It should be noted that the above-mentioned "investigate" may also be referred to as searching, comparing, judging, judging, or the like.

As a method for judging whether a received trademark and a stored trademark are similar on a text basis, it is possible to select an appropriate method. There is a method of determining whether it is more similar to .

In addition to the method described above, a similarity group code may be used as a method for determining the similarity between received product services and stored product services. For example, the similarity group code of the received product service is obtained, and the stored product service corresponding to the obtained similarity group code is obtained. That is, the system has an acquisition unit that acquires the similar group code of the received goods and services, and the similarity determination unit 13 has a stored trademark that is the same or similar to the received trademark, and a stored trademark that corresponds to the similar group code. Acquire application registration information with goods and services. By doing so, it is possible to acquire the stored product service similar to the received product service with high accuracy.

An example using a similar group code will be described.
For example, after receiving the accepted trademark "OO" (any character) and the accepted product service "clothes", the acquisition unit acquires the similar group code "17A01" of the accepted product service "clothes". Next, the similarity determination unit 13 acquires application registration information that has a stored trademark that is the same as or similar to the received trademark "OO" and that has a stored product service corresponding to the similar group code "17A01". For example, the similarity determination unit 13 acquires information on the trademark registration (registration number "XXXXXX") of the registered trademark "OO" and the designated product "Coat" (similar group code "17A01"). As a result, for example, the registration number "XXXXXXX" is output as the prior trademark.

It should be noted that the storage means 31 may have similar group codes, or a table for checking to which similar group code each product or service corresponds may be used.

Further, the similarity determination unit 13 may use a learned model obtained by machine learning to determine the similarity between received trademarks and stored trademarks and between received product services and stored product services. . By using a trained model, similarity judgment can be performed with high accuracy.

A learned model can be created by performing machine learning using a known dictionary, for example, a dictionary on the web. The trained model used by the similarity judgment unit 13 can be created by the same method as the trained model used by the discrimination judgment unit 12 .

The machine learning method is not particularly limited, and for example, a neural network, SVM (support vector machine), etc. can be used. The machine learning may be performed by the information processing device 10 or another device, and the discriminating power determination unit 12 may use a model learned by another device. Machine learning may be supervised learning or unsupervised learning.

The trained model used in the similarity determination unit 13 receives, for example, received trademarks and stored trademarks as inputs, obtains attributes of received trademarks and stored trademarks, determines whether the attributes of the two are similar, and determines whether the attributes are similar. Print the result. If the attributes of both are the same, it can be determined that the received trademark and the stored trademark are the same, and if the attributes of the two are close, it can be determined that the received trademark and the stored trademark are similar.
In addition, the trained model used in the similarity judgment unit 13 accepts, for example, received product services and stored product services as inputs, obtains the attributes of the received product services and the attributes of the stored product services, and determines whether the attributes of both are close. is determined, and the result of the determination is output. If both attributes are the same, it can be determined that the received product service and the stored product service are the same, and if both attributes are similar, it can be determined that the received product service and the stored product service are similar.

An attribute is represented by, for example, a multidimensional vector, and the closeness between both attributes is obtained by, for example, the distance between the vectors. It can be selected as appropriate, but when judging the similarity of a received trademark and a stored trademark using a trained model, it is also possible to vectorize the characters of the pronunciation (for example, katakana) and compare the vectors. good.

The similarity determination unit 13 may calculate the degree of similarity between the received trademark and the stored trademark, and may use the degree of similarity as the result of the similarity determination. Calculating the degree of similarity makes it easier for the user to understand the result of the similarity judgment. In addition, users who are unfamiliar with trademark registration applications may mistakenly think that similar trademarks cannot be registered due to the discovery of similar trademarks. can be done.

Any numerical value can be used as the degree of similarity, and for example, it may be expressed as a percentage (%). For example, the similarity between the accepted trademark "Trel" and the stored trademark "Torella" may be expressed as 80%, or the similarity between the accepted trademark "Trel" and the stored trademark "Trel" may be expressed as 90%.

A similarity calculation method can be selected as appropriate. For example, as described above, the attribute of the accepted trademark and the attribute of the stored trademark may be obtained, and the degree of similarity between the two attributes may be used as the degree of similarity. As described above, when the closeness between the two attributes is obtained by, for example, the vector distance, the vector distance may be used as the degree of similarity. In addition to this, for example, a rule may be established regarding the difference in the number of characters, the difference in pronunciation, etc., and the degree of similarity may be obtained based on the rule.

The similarity determination unit 13 in the present embodiment performs similarity determination on the information stored in the storage unit 31 using the received trademark and the received goods and services. Therefore, the processing time of the computer can be reduced as compared with the prior art. In addition, application registration information (preceding trademarks) necessary for determining the possibility of trademark registration can be obtained with high accuracy, and the labor of trademark searches can be reduced.

On the other hand, in the conventional technology, there is a method of performing a web search using a trademark character string as a search key, but there is a huge amount of information on the web, and even if there is an identical or similar trademark, it cannot be used. There are many cases where the goods and services provided are different. Therefore, when performing a web search, a large amount of unnecessary information is obtained when searching for the possibility of trademark registration, which lowers accuracy and takes time for the search. In addition, when seeking the possibility of trademark registration, it is necessary to determine whether the information is necessary or unnecessary, which is time-consuming. For these reasons, in the above-described conventional technology, the processing time of the computer increases, and the time required for the investigation also increases, and the time required for the investigation cannot be reduced.

<When the accepted trademark is an image>
Next, other embodiments included in the present invention will be described. In the above description, the accepted trademark is a character string, but since the accepted trademark only needs to contain characters, the accepted trademark may be an image.

If the accepted trademark is an image, characters included in the accepted trademark are extracted. The character extraction may be performed by the reception unit 11, by the distinguishing power determination unit 12, or by others.
A method for extracting characters from an image is not particularly limited, and for example, a known image recognition technique can be used.

The distinctiveness determination unit 12 determines whether or not the characters extracted from the accepted trademark have distinctiveness. The determination of the presence or absence of distinctiveness can be made in the same manner as described above.

The similarity determination unit 13 compares the received trademark with the stored trademark of the image, that is, compares the images to determine the similarity between the received trademark and the stored trademark. A method for comparing images can be selected as appropriate, and for example, a known image recognition technique can be used. Although not particularly limited, for example, a method of extracting and comparing feature amounts of two images can be used.

According to the present invention, even if the accepted trademark is an image, it is possible to determine whether or not characters included in the accepted trademark have distinctive power, and to determine the similarity of the image.

<Order of distinguishing power judgment and similarity judgment>
Next, other embodiments included in the present invention will be described. In the present invention, the order of distinguishing ability judgment and similarity judgment is not particularly limited, and can be changed as appropriate.

In the present embodiment, the similarity determination section 13 performs similarity determination based on the determination result of the distinctiveness determination section 12 after the distinctiveness determination section 12 determines the distinctiveness of each word included in the accepted trademark. A character string consisting of one or more words selected from the words included in the accepted trademark is judged for similarity.

By first determining the distinctiveness of each word contained in the accepted trademark, a character string with distinctiveness can be grasped. By performing similarity determination on character strings determined to have discriminative power, the accuracy of similarity determination can be improved.

An example in this embodiment will be described.
For example, if the accepted trademark "trel shirt" is replaced with the accepted product service "T-shirt", the words can be broken down into words such as "trel" and "shirt". Next, in the judgment of distinctiveness, as a result of judging the distinctiveness of each of "trel", "shirt", and "trel shirt", it is judged that "shirt" does not have distinctiveness in consideration of the relationship with the received goods and services. Suppose it was In this case, it is possible to improve the accuracy of the similarity determination by determining the similarity between "trel" and "trel shirt". In other words, similarity judgment can be performed intensively on the main part of the accepted trademark, and accuracy can be improved.

In the case where the similarity judgment is performed after the distinctiveness judgment is performed, for example, when it is judged that the received trademark has no distinctiveness, it is possible to avoid making the similarity judgment. By omitting similarity judgment, results can be output more quickly. In this case, from the viewpoint of user-friendliness, for example, an output may be made to the effect that the similarity judgment was not performed because it was judged that there was no discriminative power.

<Output section>
The output unit 14 outputs the determination result of the discrimination power determination unit 12 and the similarity determination result of the similarity determination unit 13 . At this time, the output unit 14 outputs the application registration information acquired by the similarity determination unit 13 as the similarity determination result of the similarity determination unit 13 .

As described above, the determination result of the discrimination power determination unit 12 may be, for example, "yes" or "no" discrimination power, or may be an arbitrary numerical value. Also, the reason for the determination result of the discrimination power determination unit 12 may be output.

The result of the similarity determination by the similarity determination unit 13 is the application registration information acquired by the similarity determination unit 13 .
The application registration information to be output can be selected as appropriate. For example, registration number, application number, registered trademark, trademark pertaining to trademark registration application, designated goods and services pertaining to trademark registration, designated goods pertaining to trademark registration application and designated services, categories, etc. In addition to this, the date of filing, date of registration, applicant, right holder, and the like can be mentioned. Among these, it is preferable to output the registration number and the application number. From the viewpoint of ease of understanding, it is preferable to output registered trademarks, trademarks related to trademark registration applications, designated goods and services related to trademark registrations, and trademark registration applications. It is preferable to output the designated goods and designated services.

Further, as described above, the degree of similarity between the received trademark and the stored trademark calculated by the similarity determination unit 13 may be output.

The output method of the output unit 14 can be appropriately selected. For example, search results may be displayed on the terminal 41 of the user 40 . Alternatively, the message may be sent to the terminal 41 of the user 40, or sent to an API (application interface). For example, it may be displayed on the screen of the terminal 41, or may be notified by push.

Alternatively, the information processing device 10 may output to another device, and the user 40 may acquire the determination result via the other device. In this case, the data is not limited to the case where data is transmitted from another device to the terminal 41, and the terminal 41 may cause the data to be acquired from another device. In the present embodiment, transmitting the determination result to another device is included in outputting the determination result by the output unit 14 .

FIG. 3 shows an example of the output screen. As shown in the figure, in the output screen 51 of this example, the result of discrimination power judgment is displayed in the upper stage, and the result of similarity judgment is displayed in the lower stage. The display method can be changed as appropriate.

In this example, for example, the accepted trademark is "trel" and the accepted product service is "clothes". In this example, it is assumed that the received trademark has distinctiveness, and it is indicated that it has been judged to have distinctiveness. In addition, the reason for judging that the item has distinctiveness is also displayed, and by displaying the reason, it is possible to enhance the user's understanding.

Also, this example is an example in which a registered trademark similar to the accepted trademark is found. In this example, the distinguishing power determination unit 12 registers a trademark (application registration information ) is acquired, and the result is displayed as (1) in the figure.
Similarly, the distinctiveness determination unit 12 registers trademarks (application registration information ) is acquired, and the result is displayed as (2) in the figure.

According to this embodiment, a trademark search can be performed simply by inputting the trademark and the goods or services, and the effort and time required for performing the trademark search can be reduced. The purpose for which the present invention is used is not particularly limited, but it can be suitably used when investigating the possibility of trademark registration, especially when filing an application for trademark registration, and the possibility of trademark registration. It is possible to reduce the labor and time in investigating the nature.

It should be noted that the trademark search can be selected as appropriate. When investigating the possibility of a trademark being registered when an application for trademark registration is filed, not only one's own trademark but also another person's trademark may be used.

<Registration feasibility determination unit>
Next, another embodiment of the present invention will be described.
This embodiment has a registration possibility determination unit 16 .
The registrability determination unit 16 calculates the registrability of the received trademark based on the determination result of the distinctiveness determination unit 12 and the similarity determination result of the similarity determination unit 13, and determines the registrability of the received trademark. Rank.
In addition, the output unit 14 ranks the results of the registrability determination unit 16 instead of the determination result of the discrimination power determination unit 12 and the similarity determination result of the similarity determination unit 13, or together with these results. Print the result.

The ranking can be selected as appropriate, and can be divided into, for example, 3 or 5 according to the possibility of registration.

A method for calculating the registrability of the accepted trademark can be selected as appropriate. For example, if it is determined that the received trademark has distinctiveness and there is no stored trademark that is identical or similar to the received trademark, the registrability may be set to "A" (high registrability). In addition, for example, if it is determined that the received trademark is not distinctive, the registrability may be set to "C" (low registrability). If there is a stored trademark similar to the received trademark, the possibility of registration may be set to "B" (possibility of registration).

FIG. 4 shows an example of the output screen 51 in this embodiment.
The example shown here is the same as the example shown in FIG. 3, but the possibility of registration is displayed on the output screen 51 . In this example, it is determined that the received trademark has distinctiveness, and there is a stored trademark similar to the received trademark. B" is displayed. By ranking and outputting the registrability, users can quickly and roughly understand the likelihood that a trademark will be registered. This makes it easier to take measures such as filing an application under a different trademark.

Further, in the output screen 51 of this example, the degree of similarity is displayed at the result of similarity judgment. This makes it easier for the user to understand the result of the similarity judgment. The reason for the numerical value of the degree of similarity may also be displayed. Users who are unfamiliar with trademark registration applications may misunderstand that similar trademarks cannot be registered, but displaying the degree of similarity can prevent such misunderstandings. .

<Information processing method>
According to the present invention, as described above, a computer-implemented information processing method is provided.
An information processing method of the present invention is an information processing method for performing information processing by a computer,
a reception process for accepting trademarks containing characters and goods or services;
a distinctiveness determination step of determining the presence or absence of distinctiveness of characters included in the trademark;
a similarity determination step of performing similarity determination on information stored in a storage means using the trademark and the goods or services;
An output step of outputting the judgment result of the discrimination judgment step and the similarity judgment result of the similarity judgment step,
The storage means stores information relating to trademark registration applications and/or trademark registrations as application registration information, and the application registration information includes trademarks pertaining to trademark registration applications or trademark registrations and designated goods or designated services. and
The trademark received by the receiving process is defined as a received trademark, the goods or services received by the receiving process are defined as received goods and services, the trademarks stored in the storage means are stored trademarks, and the specified goods and services stored in the storage means are stored. When designated services are stored goods services,
The distinctiveness determination step includes a first determination step of determining the distinctiveness of characters included in the trademark without taking into consideration the relationship with the received goods and services; Perform at least one of a second judgment step of judging the discriminative power in consideration of the relationship,
The similarity determination step acquires the application registration information having the stored trademark identical or similar to the received trademark and having the stored merchandise service identical or similar to the received merchandise service,
The output step is characterized in that the application registration information acquired by the similarity determination step is output as a result of the similarity determination in the similarity determination step.

<Information processing program>
According to the present invention, an information processing program is provided as described above.
An information processing program of the present invention is an information processing program that causes a computer to execute information processing,
Reception processing for accepting trademarks containing characters and goods or services;
a distinctiveness judgment process for judging the presence or absence of distinctiveness of characters included in the trademark;
a similarity determination process for determining similarity with respect to information stored in a storage means using the trademark and the goods or services;
An output process for outputting the judgment result of the discrimination power judgment process and the similarity judgment result of the similarity judgment process,
The storage means stores information relating to trademark registration applications and/or trademark registrations as application registration information, and the application registration information includes trademarks pertaining to trademark registration applications or trademark registrations and designated goods or designated services. and
The trademark accepted by the acceptance process is the accepted trademark, the goods or services accepted by the acceptance process are accepted goods and services, the trademarks stored in the storage means are stored trademarks, and the designated goods and services stored in the storage means are stored. When designated services are stored goods services,
The distinguishing power judgment processing includes a first judgment step of judging the distinguishing power of characters included in the trademark without considering the relationship with the received goods and services; Perform at least one of a second judgment step of judging the discriminative power in consideration of the relationship,
The similarity determination process acquires the registered application information that has the stored trademark that is the same as or similar to the received trademark and that has the stored product service that is the same or similar to the received product service,
The output processing is characterized in that the application registration information acquired by the similarity determination processing is output as a similarity determination result of the similarity determination processing.

10 Information processing device 11 Receiving unit 12 Discrimination determination unit 13 Similarity determination unit 14 Output unit 15 Update unit 16 Registrability determination unit 31 Storage means 40 User 41 Terminal 50 Input screen 51 Output screen 61 Trademark input field 62 Goods and services input Field 63 Execute button

Claims (13)

a reception unit that receives trademarks containing characters and goods or services;
a distinctiveness determination unit that determines whether characters included in the trademark have distinctiveness;
a similarity determination unit that uses the trademark and the goods or services and performs similarity determination on the information stored in the storage means;
an output unit for outputting a result of judgment by the discriminating power judgment unit and a result of similarity judgment by the similarity judgment unit;
The storage means stores information relating to trademark registration applications and/or trademark registrations as application registration information, and the application registration information includes trademarks pertaining to trademark registration applications or trademark registrations and designated goods and/or designated services. is included and
The trademark received by the reception unit is defined as a received trademark, the goods or services received by the reception unit are defined as received goods and services, the trademarks stored in the storage means are stored trademarks, and the specified goods and services stored in the storage means are stored. When designated services are stored goods services,
The distinguishing power judging unit comprises: a first distinguishing power judging step of judging whether or not characters contained in the accepted trademark have distinguishing power without taking into consideration the relationship with the accepted goods and services; perform at least one of a second distinctiveness judgment step of judging the presence or absence of distinctiveness in consideration of the relationship with the received product service,
The similarity determination unit acquires the application registration information having the stored trademark identical or similar to the received trademark and having the stored merchandise service identical or similar to the received merchandise service,
The trademark search system, wherein the output unit outputs the application registration information acquired by the similarity determination unit as a similarity determination result of the similarity determination unit. Registrability for calculating the registrability of the accepted trademark and ranking the registrability of the accepted trademark based on the judgment result of the distinctiveness judgment unit and the similarity judgment result of the similarity judgment unit having a determination unit,
The output unit outputs the result ranked by the registrability determination unit in place of the determination result of the discrimination power determination unit and the similarity determination result of the similarity determination unit, or together with these results. 2. The trademark search system according to claim 1, which outputs. 3. The trademark search system according to claim 1, wherein said second distinctiveness determination step uses a learned model obtained by machine learning to determine the distinctiveness of said received trademark. The first distinguishing power determination step checks whether the characters included in the accepted trademark are included in a list in which words having no distinctiveness are registered, and whether the characters included in the accepted trademark are included in the list. 4. The trademark search system according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein said received trademark is judged to have no distinctiveness if it consists only of words. The similarity determination unit uses a trained model obtained by machine learning to determine the similarity between the received trademark and the stored trademark, and the similarity between the received product service and the stored product service. The trademark search system according to any one of claims 1 to 4. The similarity determination unit calculates a degree of similarity between the received trademark and the stored trademark,
6. The trademark search system according to any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein said output unit outputs said stored trademarks whose degree of similarity exceeds a threshold. the accepted trademark is an image;
The distinctiveness determination unit determines whether or not the character extracted from the accepted trademark has distinctiveness,
7. The trademark search system according to claim 1, wherein said similarity determination unit compares said received trademark with said stored trademark of an image. 8. The trademark search system according to any one of claims 1 to 7, wherein said distinctiveness determination unit decomposes said received trademark into words and determines whether or not each word has distinctiveness. The similarity judging section judges the similarity based on the judgment result of the distinctive power judging section after the distinctive power judging section judges the distinctive power of each word included in the accepted trademark. 9. The trademark search system according to claim 8, wherein similarity judgment is performed for a character string formed by selecting one or more words from among the words included in the received trademark. an acquisition unit that acquires a similar group code of the received goods and services;
The similarity determination unit acquires the registered application information that has the stored trademark that is identical or similar to the received trademark and that has the stored product service corresponding to the similar group code. The trademark search system according to any one of items 1 to 9. a reception unit that receives trademarks containing characters and goods or services;
a distinctiveness determination unit that determines whether characters included in the trademark have distinctiveness;
a similarity determination unit that uses the trademark and the goods or services and performs similarity determination on the information stored in the storage means;
an output unit for outputting a result of judgment by the discriminating power judgment unit and a result of similarity judgment by the similarity judgment unit;
The storage means stores information relating to trademark registration applications and/or trademark registrations as application registration information, and the application registration information includes trademarks pertaining to trademark registration applications or trademark registrations and designated goods and/or designated services. is included and
The trademark received by the reception unit is defined as a received trademark, the goods or services received by the reception unit are defined as received goods and services, the trademarks stored in the storage means are stored trademarks, and the specified goods and services stored in the storage means are stored. When designated services are stored goods services,
The distinguishing power judging unit comprises: a first distinguishing power judging step of judging whether or not characters contained in the accepted trademark have distinguishing power without taking into consideration the relationship with the accepted goods and services; perform at least one of a second distinctiveness judgment step of judging the presence or absence of distinctiveness in consideration of the relationship with the received product service,
The similarity determination unit acquires the application registration information having the stored trademark identical or similar to the received trademark and having the stored merchandise service identical or similar to the received merchandise service,
The information processing apparatus, wherein the output unit outputs the application registration information acquired by the similarity determination unit as a result of the similarity determination by the similarity determination unit. An information processing method for performing information processing by a computer,
a reception process for accepting trademarks containing characters and goods or services;
a distinctiveness determination step of determining the presence or absence of distinctiveness of characters included in the trademark;
a similarity determination step of performing similarity determination on information stored in a storage means using the trademark and the goods or services;
An output step of outputting the judgment result of the discrimination judgment step and the similarity judgment result of the similarity judgment step,
The storage means stores information relating to trademark registration applications and/or trademark registrations as application registration information, and the application registration information includes trademarks pertaining to trademark registration applications or trademark registrations and designated goods or designated services. and
The trademark received by the receiving process is defined as a received trademark, the goods or services received by the receiving process are defined as received goods and services, the trademarks stored in the storage means are stored trademarks, and the specified goods and services stored in the storage means are stored. When designated services are stored goods services,
The distinctiveness determination step includes a first distinctiveness determination step of determining whether or not characters included in the accepted trademark have distinctiveness without considering the relationship with the accepted goods and services, and a character included in the accepted trademark. perform at least one of a second distinctiveness judgment step of judging the presence or absence of distinctiveness in consideration of the relationship with the received product service,
The similarity determination step acquires the application registration information having the stored trademark identical or similar to the received trademark and having the stored merchandise service identical or similar to the received merchandise service,
The information processing method, wherein the outputting step outputs the application registration information acquired by the similarity determining step as a result of the similarity determination of the similarity determining step. An information processing program that causes a computer to execute information processing,
Reception processing for accepting trademarks containing characters and goods or services;
a distinctiveness judgment process for judging the presence or absence of distinctiveness of characters included in the trademark;
a similarity determination process for determining similarity with respect to information stored in a storage means using the trademark and the goods or services;
An output process for outputting the judgment result of the discrimination power judgment process and the similarity judgment result of the similarity judgment process,
The storage means stores information relating to trademark registration applications and/or trademark registrations as application registration information, and the application registration information includes trademarks pertaining to trademark registration applications or trademark registrations and designated goods or designated services. and
The trademark accepted by the acceptance process is the accepted trademark, the goods or services accepted by the acceptance process are accepted goods and services, the trademarks stored in the storage means are stored trademarks, and the designated goods and services stored in the storage means are stored. When designated services are stored goods services,
The distinctiveness determination process includes a first distinctiveness determination step of determining whether or not characters included in the accepted trademark have distinctiveness without considering the relationship with the accepted goods and services, and a character included in the accepted trademark. perform at least one of a second distinctiveness judgment step of judging the presence or absence of distinctiveness in consideration of the relationship with the received product service,
The similarity determination process acquires the registered application information that has the stored trademark that is the same as or similar to the received trademark and that has the stored product service that is the same or similar to the received product service,
The information processing program, wherein the output process outputs the application registration information acquired by the similarity determination process as a similarity determination result of the similarity determination process.

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