TAST-Trademark Application Assistant

In this paper, we introduce a novel Trademark Application Assistant (TAST) that aims to speed up the process of a successful trademark application. The core of TAST is a web-browser based integrated image content editing and similarity-based retrieval system accessing local and remote databases of coded trademark images. Potential users of TAST include the party that initiates a request for trademark application, the trademark designer, and the government agency that administers trademark registration. At the time of writing, systems with similar capabilities are non-existent in the industry. This research is one among a number of multimedia projects carried out in the Center for Tsukuba Advanced Research Alliance at the University of Tsukuba that aims to produce real-world systems through cooperation among the university, the government, and the industry.