Huski Blog

<p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img src="/hc/article_attachments/4570213685017/1_zCybvRiipJF2oY9nYadXIQ__1_.png" alt="1_zCybvRiipJF2oY9nYadXIQ__1_.png"></p> <p id="3d5a" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw"><a class="au kw" title="First search engine for brand protection and growth" href="https://huski.ai/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow noreferrer">Huski.ai</a> exists to make brand protection and growth easy with cutting-edge AI.</p> <p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">&nbsp;</p> <p id="57b8" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">Here is why and how.</p> <p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">&nbsp;</p> <p id="35af" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw"><span class="wysiwyg-font-size-large">The WHY</span></p> <p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw"><br>Creativity is a precious core part of humanity, a brand is what makes a memorable impression of that creation on people. A brand differentiates one business, service, or product from another; it represents the prized innovation that starts any venture. It also conveys core values, builds trust, and provides personal connections between a business and its consumers.</p> <p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">&nbsp;</p> <p id="8fd8" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">As the wealth of data and demand for specialization increase, more long-tailed brand owners emerge. In other words, brand owners can gain significant traction by producing smaller amounts of a unique, well-crafted product or service. Consumer behaviors are shifting away from buying generic products that merely suffice. Instead, consumers wish to buy branded products that fit their ultra-personalized needs. A decade ago, a brand owner may only mean a Fortune 500 company like Apple or Nike. Today, a brand owner could be a social media influencer or an indie artist working from home. Tomorrow, you and I could have personal brands in the Metaverse. We could exchange innovations with cryptocurrencies and certify them with NFTs. The bar to become a brand owner is more achievable than it has ever been–and soon enough, the opportunity will be accessible to anyone.</p> <p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">&nbsp;</p> <p>Sounds fantastic, right? There’s only one catch: creating and maintaining a brand is not hassle-free. There have always been and will always be infringers on your creativity and innovations. Somewhere, someone may be working on things very similar to yours, knowingly or unknowingly, and maybe branding them in the same way.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>So, brand owners always want to be aware of two things:</p> <ul> <li>Am I infringing on others’ brands?</li> <li>Are others infringing on my brand?</li> </ul> <p>Answering these two questions is gruelingly hard. First, one must have the skillsets or tools to gather such information in the vast information space crossing commerce, marketing, branding, and litigation. It also requires deep knowledge across different domains, such as market space insights, products, intellectual properties, litigation practice, and so on, to understand the problem and find possible remediation solutions. These challenges make it difficult, if not impossible, for emerging brand owners to even think about affordable brand protection solutions. These obstacles lead to unequal opportunities for smaller brand owners to grow their brands and focus on innovation.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>There needs to be an affordable solution to answer those two questions in order to help brand owners protect their brands and give them peace of mind to focus on innovation and enjoy the benefits of their creations.</p> <p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">&nbsp;</p> <p id="e6c8" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">This is why Huski exists.</p> <p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">&nbsp;</p> <p id="fc4a" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw"><span class="wysiwyg-font-size-large">The HOW</span></p> <p><strong>Our mission is to build the industry’s first and the best brand and insight search engine</strong>. The goal is simple. The search engine is to identify where and how branded content is used in the eCommerce space in various formats, such as text, images, and even videos. The engine also generates actionable insights to help brand owners to understand the impact and take actions accordingly. Google is for organizing the world’s information, while Huski exists to organize (and understand) the world’s branding information.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <div class="sr ss cj st dq su"> <div class="gz ha ts wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img src="/hc/article_attachments/4570240404121/1_80AJHg6W4qnz5HfzHYQMYQ.png" alt="1_80AJHg6W4qnz5HfzHYQMYQ.png"></div> </div> <span class="wysiwyg-color-black50">An example of a search result given a product picture where the “modified” Peppa Pig information at the upper left corner was detected and recognized by our AI model and the detailed brand information is displayed on the right. All Trademarks displayed in the images belong to their brand owners, they don’t have any affiliation with Huski.ai</span><span class="wysiwyg-color-black60"><br></span> <p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">&nbsp;</p> <p id="07c3" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw"><a class="au kw" href="https://medium.com/@huski/search-huski-a-new-ai-milestone-for-understanding-branding-information-9557c8afce8f" rel="noopener">This article</a> further explains the tech behind it.</p> <p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">&nbsp;</p> <p id="9e53" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw"><span class="wysiwyg-font-size-large">The WHO</span></p> <p id="362d" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">We are a group of engineers and visionaries who made self-driving cars, combat decision engines, AI chips, recommendation systems, and more. As innovators ourselves, we strongly believe that hassle-free brand growth drives innovation forward, which in turn drives humanity forward.</p> <p id="6353" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">We want to help individuals, professionals, and businesses of all sizes enjoy and benefit from the process of innovation.</p> <p id="5e06" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">It is paramount, it is fragile, and it is on us.</p>
PRODUCT INTRODUCTION

What is Huski.ai?

Huski.ai exists to make brand protection and growth easy with cutting-edge AI.   Here is why and how.   The WHY Creativity is a precious...

PRODUCT INTRODUCTION

<p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img src="/hc/article_attachments/4570213685017/1_zCybvRiipJF2oY9nYadXIQ__1_.png" alt="1_zCybvRiipJF2oY9nYadXIQ__1_.png"></p> <p id="3d5a" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw"><a class="au kw" title="First search engine for brand protection and growth" href="https://huski.ai/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow noreferrer">Huski.ai</a> exists to make brand protection and growth easy with cutting-edge AI.</p> <p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">&nbsp;</p> <p id="57b8" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">Here is why and how.</p> <p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">&nbsp;</p> <p id="35af" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw"><span class="wysiwyg-font-size-large">The WHY</span></p> <p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw"><br>Creativity is a precious core part of humanity, a brand is what makes a memorable impression of that creation on people. A brand differentiates one business, service, or product from another; it represents the prized innovation that starts any venture. It also conveys core values, builds trust, and provides personal connections between a business and its consumers.</p> <p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">&nbsp;</p> <p id="8fd8" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">As the wealth of data and demand for specialization increase, more long-tailed brand owners emerge. In other words, brand owners can gain significant traction by producing smaller amounts of a unique, well-crafted product or service. Consumer behaviors are shifting away from buying generic products that merely suffice. Instead, consumers wish to buy branded products that fit their ultra-personalized needs. A decade ago, a brand owner may only mean a Fortune 500 company like Apple or Nike. Today, a brand owner could be a social media influencer or an indie artist working from home. Tomorrow, you and I could have personal brands in the Metaverse. We could exchange innovations with cryptocurrencies and certify them with NFTs. The bar to become a brand owner is more achievable than it has ever been–and soon enough, the opportunity will be accessible to anyone.</p> <p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">&nbsp;</p> <p>Sounds fantastic, right? There’s only one catch: creating and maintaining a brand is not hassle-free. There have always been and will always be infringers on your creativity and innovations. Somewhere, someone may be working on things very similar to yours, knowingly or unknowingly, and maybe branding them in the same way.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>So, brand owners always want to be aware of two things:</p> <ul> <li>Am I infringing on others’ brands?</li> <li>Are others infringing on my brand?</li> </ul> <p>Answering these two questions is gruelingly hard. First, one must have the skillsets or tools to gather such information in the vast information space crossing commerce, marketing, branding, and litigation. It also requires deep knowledge across different domains, such as market space insights, products, intellectual properties, litigation practice, and so on, to understand the problem and find possible remediation solutions. These challenges make it difficult, if not impossible, for emerging brand owners to even think about affordable brand protection solutions. These obstacles lead to unequal opportunities for smaller brand owners to grow their brands and focus on innovation.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>There needs to be an affordable solution to answer those two questions in order to help brand owners protect their brands and give them peace of mind to focus on innovation and enjoy the benefits of their creations.</p> <p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">&nbsp;</p> <p id="e6c8" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">This is why Huski exists.</p> <p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">&nbsp;</p> <p id="fc4a" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw"><span class="wysiwyg-font-size-large">The HOW</span></p> <p><strong>Our mission is to build the industry’s first and the best brand and insight search engine</strong>. The goal is simple. The search engine is to identify where and how branded content is used in the eCommerce space in various formats, such as text, images, and even videos. The engine also generates actionable insights to help brand owners to understand the impact and take actions accordingly. Google is for organizing the world’s information, while Huski exists to organize (and understand) the world’s branding information.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <div class="sr ss cj st dq su"> <div class="gz ha ts wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img src="/hc/article_attachments/4570240404121/1_80AJHg6W4qnz5HfzHYQMYQ.png" alt="1_80AJHg6W4qnz5HfzHYQMYQ.png"></div> </div> <span class="wysiwyg-color-black50">An example of a search result given a product picture where the “modified” Peppa Pig information at the upper left corner was detected and recognized by our AI model and the detailed brand information is displayed on the right. All Trademarks displayed in the images belong to their brand owners, they don’t have any affiliation with Huski.ai</span><span class="wysiwyg-color-black60"><br></span> <p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">&nbsp;</p> <p id="07c3" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw"><a class="au kw" href="https://medium.com/@huski/search-huski-a-new-ai-milestone-for-understanding-branding-information-9557c8afce8f" rel="noopener">This article</a> further explains the tech behind it.</p> <p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">&nbsp;</p> <p id="9e53" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw"><span class="wysiwyg-font-size-large">The WHO</span></p> <p id="362d" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">We are a group of engineers and visionaries who made self-driving cars, combat decision engines, AI chips, recommendation systems, and more. As innovators ourselves, we strongly believe that hassle-free brand growth drives innovation forward, which in turn drives humanity forward.</p> <p id="6353" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">We want to help individuals, professionals, and businesses of all sizes enjoy and benefit from the process of innovation.</p> <p id="5e06" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">It is paramount, it is fragile, and it is on us.</p>

What is Huski.ai?
<p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img src="/hc/article_attachments/4610665114905/WX20220304-171641_2x__1_.png" alt="WX20220304-171641_2x__1_.png"></p> <p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">&nbsp;</p> <p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">&nbsp;</p> <p id="17e8" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">The trademark registrability exam is one of the most frequent tasks one performs before the application starts. Even at the designing phase, the designers want to know if there’re similar visual/textural elements already there. The brand owners and the attorney would also want to do the due diligence.</p> <p id="f9c4" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">With the existing tools, i.e. USPTO search and others, creators must manually parse through loads of information across the web. This is very time-intensive and requires precision. They cannot know for certain if perhaps something slipped through–if they really checked the far reaches of the internet. A certain amount of guesswork is always involved, and what’s worse is when the trademark office approves these applications.</p> <p id="dd84" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">This is where Huski.ai comes in. Huski’s industry-first brand search &amp; insight engine brings simplicity and peace of mind to the trademark registration process. With Huski, in a matter of seconds, you can search through tens of millions of trademarks, images, or texts that share similar visuals/themes to your brand. Huski also provides a trademark infringement analysis in less than three minutes. Let’s see how it’s done.</p> <p id="e659" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">First, go to the “Registrability Analysis” tab and fill in the info. (Done in 30 sec) We’re using our own brand info for this demo.</p> <div class="sr ss cj st dq su"> <div class="gz ha ack wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*TgLYzgM5PQupDty-m-oXbQ.png" alt="" width="700" height="138"></div> </div> <p id="9d8e" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">Second, wait 10 sec, give or take, and see the results with complete coverage of similar text (exact match, photonics, fuzzy) and image (similarity)</p> <p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">&nbsp;</p> <div class="sr ss cj st dq su"> <div class="gz ha acl wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*4oVh0lXNHRWyPgcQSykEog.png" alt="" width="700" height="247"></div> <div class="gz ha acl wysiwyg-text-align-center">[Text results shown at the first half of the list]</div> <div class="gz ha acl wysiwyg-text-align-center">&nbsp;</div> </div> <div class="sr ss cj st dq su"> <div class="gz ha acm wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*k1a_OyP8wNvWZhN_E1WzAA.png" alt="" width="700" height="375"></div> <div class="gz ha acm wysiwyg-text-align-center">[image results shown at the second half of the list]</div> <div class="gz ha acm wysiwyg-text-align-center">&nbsp;</div> </div> <p id="7317" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">Third, go through the list, see the details of any of the trademarks, and select the most related ones for your trademark registribility report. (Done in 1 min)</p> <div class="sr ss cj st dq su"> <div class="gz ha acn wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*3ZVsj4NZnOXN2cUJz6MPjg.png" alt="" width="700" height="156"></div> </div> <div class="sr ss cj st dq su"> <div class="gz ha aco wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*gm4H0_rj5zxuarNlc4SIWQ.png" alt="" width="700" height="943"></div> </div> <p id="15f3" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">Click “Generate Report” and that’s it!</p> <p id="f3ee" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">Here is how our report looks like. It contains a comprehensive analysis of the likelihood of your trademark being approved. I did it in less than 2 mins, but you could have some extra time to customize the report.</p> <div class="gz ha acp wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1116/1*BPKvvrjeBJpxxB1W81LgVg.png" alt="" width="558" height="713"></div> <p id="3a15" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">Visit <a class="au kw" href="http://www.huski.ai" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">www.huski.ai</a> to discover more!</p>

How to Generate a Trademark Registrability Report in less than 3 mins
<p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img src="/hc/article_attachments/4611294968217/Group_1183__1___1_.png" alt="Group_1183__1___1_.png"></p> <p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">&nbsp;</p> <p id="f185" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">If you own an online store, you might own a legal “time bomb” due to some of your products or marketing materials unknowingly infringing on others. But there is no easy way to find out.</p> <p id="1e50" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">If you are a trademark attorney, you might manually search for infringement cases to take on in eCommerce. But there is no easy way to let the cases fly to you.</p> <p id="5808" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">Thanks to Huski’s brand search engine, these tasks are becoming increasingly simple.</p> <p id="b9b3" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">First, go to <a class="au kw" href="http://www.huski.ai," target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">www.huski.ai,</a> and tell us which store you want to exam.</p> <div class="sr ss cj st dq su"> <div class="gz ha acq wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*Wbz3iYPbggHyyZZsJBBaVw.png" alt="" width="700" height="479"></div> </div> <p id="919a" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">We support the following major marketplaces. Yes, we support “Shopify”, which means we support millions of independent sites in the Shopify ecosystem.</p> <div class="sr ss cj st dq su"> <div class="gz ha acr wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*Gw59hnOrM8TcUqma2jcEHg.png" alt="" width="700" height="47"></div> </div> <p id="c559" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">After submitting the analysis request, all you need is to wait for the report. Here is what’s going to happen.</p> <div class="gz ha acs wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1044/1*sdrHQii6HxyvXuD8JLZWlA.png" alt="" width="522" height="597"></div> <p id="22c4" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">After a while, you will get the most advanced brand infringement analysis report that covers the store of your selection and the products there got checked against millions of branded materials and other products.</p> <div class="sr ss cj st dq su"> <div class="gz ha act wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*5-mAoE9qEcIckmn2Yd9rWg.png" alt="" width="700" height="381"></div> </div> <p id="7043" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">Visit <a class="au kw" href="http://www.huski.ai" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">www.huski.ai</a> to see what’s inside. Your peace of mind starts here.</p>

Know the Brand Infringement Risks of an Online Store with 1 Click

PERSPECTIVES

<div class=""> <h1 id="22d4" class="pw-post-title rp iq rq cg fm rr rs rt ru rv rw rx ry rz sa sb sc sd se sf sg sh si sj sk sl gw wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img src="/hc/article_attachments/4610733095449/sasun-bughdaryan-e11Oa3kvx4c-unsplash__1_.jpg" alt="sasun-bughdaryan-e11Oa3kvx4c-unsplash__1_.jpg"></h1> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> </div> <div class="sr ss cj st dq su"> <div class="gz ha ach wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*ziKG3O5VD7XJDH1FF3L0Bw.png" alt="" width="700" height="922"></div> </div> <p id="0612" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">The Shop Safe Act is a bipartisan bill introduced in the House of Representatives on March 2, 2020. The official name of the Act is the Stopping Harmful Offers on Platforms by Screening Against Fakes in E-commerce Act. While the bill has not moved much in Congress yet, rumors are that some in Congress are planning to add this Act to the bipartisan Endless Frontier Act, a technology infrastructure bill already passed in the Senate and could become law in the foreseeable future. If the plan to bundle with The Endless Frontier Act succeeds, it could soon create an earthshaking shock to online marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, or the likes.</p> <p id="aaea" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">What does the Shop Safe Act do? It would amend the Trademark Act of 1946 to give certain e-commerce platforms contributory liability when counterfeits are sold. Liability would apply for counterfeit products that pose a health risk. Under the current law, e-commerce platforms are rarely liable for counterfeit products sold by third parties. However, under the Shop Safe Act, if counterfeit products sold by a third-party seller on the platform pose a health risk to consumers, the trademark owner or customer can hold the e-commerce platform liable for allowing the counterfeit. Given the phenomenal growth in e-commerce during the pandemic and growing online counterfeiting problems, e-commerce platforms could soon be hit with overwhelming counterfeit lawsuits and liabilities if they are not adequately prepared for it.</p> <p id="8dbd" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">Liability will be huge for e-commerce platforms under the Shop Safe Act. A court can grant statutory damages between $1000 and $200,000 even in a case without an actual sale of the accused counterfeit products. The damage awards could go up to 2 million dollars if the infringement is found to be willful. Given the significant number of counterfeiting products, damages against e-commerce platforms for non-compliance with the Shop Safe Act could rise astronomically in a short period.</p> <p id="9397" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">The Shop Safe Act does provide a way out for e-commerce platforms if the third-party seller in question is available to be served a lawsuit in the U.S or the platforms do the following:</p> <p id="61ec" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">(1) required the third-party seller to have a registered agent or a verified address for service of process in the United States;</p> <p id="3165" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">(2) verified the seller’s identity and contact information;</p> <p id="b17e" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">(3) required as a condition of using the platform that sellers agree not to use counterfeit marks and to consent to the jurisdiction of U.S. courts in any claims related to selling on the platform;</p> <p id="04e3" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">(4) implemented policies to remove and ban repeat offenders; and</p> <p id="547d" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">(5) implemented technical measures to prescreen listings on the platform and remove listings for goods being sold with a counterfeit mark.</p> <p id="70aa" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">Most popular e-commerce platforms are already doing some or most of the steps (1) through (4). What is lacking is Step №5, <em class="nl">i.e</em>., implementing technical measures to prescreen listings on the platform and remove listings for goods being sold with a counterfeit mark. Some platforms like Amazon have already implemented some measures to combat the counterfeiting problem. But that effort is mostly manual and Amazon’s effort to combat counterfeit still largely relies on user or seller reporting/complaints of trademark infringement.</p> <p id="6903" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">Why have no e-commerce platforms implemented a prescreening procedure for online listings yet? Policing hundreds of millions of listings online is a daunting task, even for a technology powerhouse like Amazon. Not only the volume of listings is too big to manage, but online counterfeiters are also getting “smarter“ and more sophisticated. For example, instead of using famous brand names as part of the listing, counterfeit sellers can use images like the one below to make it difficult for a typical keyword search engine to find a counterfeit product. In this example, the complete phrase “Calvin Klein” is nowhere to be found. Instead, the picture only shows “…vin Klein” and “Calvin….” Counterfeiting is apparent to a person looking at this picture but very difficult for a regular search engine like Google to pinpoint.</p> <div class="gz ha zd wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/744/1*5acCG-FA9Rz5xK6bq8epNA.png" alt="" width="372" height="281"></div> <p id="ee5a" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">Huski.ai, a Silicon Valley-based tech startup, has recently launched an AI-powered branding analysis and monitoring service. Its trademark search engine is potent for complex design mark searches and could become a powerful tool for e-commerce platforms to prescreen carefully disguised online infringers. In the example shown below, the Huski.ai search engine was able to search an online store and accurately locate the infringing symbol on a jersey that counterfeits the logo for the NBA Cavalier team.</p> <div class="sr ss cj st dq su"> <div class="gz ha aci wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*ND1iBiHQnMflk-vROwmoig.png" alt="" width="700" height="500"></div> <div class="gz ha aci wysiwyg-text-align-center">Trademark detected on counterfeit goods</div> </div> <div class="gz ha acj wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/256/0*5Gsy_FPz-MQBnA7L" alt="" width="128" height="260"></div> <div class="gz ha acj wysiwyg-text-align-center"><a class="au kw" href="https://huski.ai/trademark/78237358/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">Trademark owned Cavaliers Operating Company LLC</a></div> <p id="4731" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">The Huski.ai search engine is also scalable to handle a voluminous number of online listings and stores. With a powerful tool like Huski.ai, e-commerce platforms can rest assured that no “smart” counterfeiter can get away from infringement with canny techniques. Should the Shop Safe Act pass Congress in the near future, e-commerce platforms can quickly become compliant with the law and avoid getting hit by the enormous liabilities if they fail to root out counterfeiters on their platforms.</p>

The Shop Safe Act Calls for Smart Solutions Against Online Counterfeiting
<p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img src="/hc/article_attachments/4611236042009/tezos-wuaK3CS_dR8-unsplash.jpg" alt="tezos-wuaK3CS_dR8-unsplash.jpg"></p> <p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">&nbsp;</p> <p id="6484" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">Whether you like it or not, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have exploded in this universe in the past year. With the advent of Metaverse, the frenzy for NFTs or virtual properties shows no sign of cooling off anytime soon. From art and music to burgers or anything else you can imagine, these digital assets sell like exotic treasures — some for millions of dollars.</p> <p id="0441" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">However, for the big fashion houses, NFT’s phenomenal growth poses both opportunities and challenges. Famous brands like Luis Vuitton and Burberry have already ventured into the NFT worlds by developing their own digital assets. In the meantime, brand owners are presented with a new and unique challenge in the era of metaverse and NFTs: how to protect their intellectual property rights in the metaverse?</p> <p id="416a" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">According to The Fashion Law, Hermès recently sent a cease and desist letter to Mason Rothschild, the artist behind the MetaBirkins NFTs. One of the MetaBirkins NFTs is shown below:</p> <div class="sr ss cj st dq su"> <div class="gz ha acb wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*VS4BHaUc7r99H4Te0xn9kA.png" alt="" width="700" height="467"></div> <div class="gz ha acb wysiwyg-text-align-center">NFT created by MetaBirkins</div> </div> <p id="6e74" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">The creator of the NFT Birkin bags admits his work is spired by Hermès’ famed Birkin bag. Launched by shopping and social platform Basic Space, the NFT Birkin bag sold for $47,000 USD. Following the inaugural Birkin bag NFT, Rothschild created MetaBirkins, a collection of 100 unique Birkin-inspired NFTs. At this time, Rothschild claims that MetaBirkins has sold over 1.1 million USD, which is an amazing feat but not uncommon in the NFT world.</p> <p id="f9f0" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">As one of Hermès’ most famous fashion products, a Birkin bag looks like the one shown below.</p> <div class="gz ha acc wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/800/0*XXeWDgz881I3jF5G" alt="" width="400" height="400"></div> <div class="gz ha acc wysiwyg-text-align-center">A Hermès Birkin Handbag</div> <p id="2506" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">The Birkin bag is so famous, Hermès has spared no expense in protecting its most prestigious product design. It not only registered the Birkin name as a trademark but also managed to register at least two design trademarks in connection with the Birkin bag. One is <a class="au kw" href="https://huski.ai/trademark/76700120" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">U.S. Trademark Registration №3,936,105 (“‘105 Trademark”)</a>, which covers the contour and overall design of the bag (dotted lines are not part of the trademark). Another is <a class="au kw" href="https://huski.ai/trademark/74336038" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">U.S. Trademark Registration №1,806,107 (“‘107 Trademark”)</a>, which covers the middle belt with a lock. Both design trademarks are shown as follows:</p> <div class="sr ss cj st dq su"> <div class="gz ha acd wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/332/1*J9CqXsxV5EGuINu8ywODnQ.png" alt="" width="166" height="189"></div> <div class="gz ha acd wysiwyg-text-align-center"><a class="au kw" href="https://huski.ai/trademark/76700120" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">U.S. Trademark Registration № 3,936,105</a></div> </div> <div class="gz ha ace wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/672/1*7Js_iXFFwJaxHVXEJhzMsQ.png" alt="" width="336" height="166"></div> <div class="gz ha ace wysiwyg-text-align-center"><a class="au kw" href="https://huski.ai/trademark/74336038" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">U.S. Trademark Registration № 1,806,107</a></div> <div class="gz ha ace wysiwyg-text-align-center">&nbsp;</div> <p id="93cb" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">The benefit of a product design trademark is that it could theoretically protect the design of a famous product forever without worrying about the legal expiration of a design patent and copyrighted work.</p> <p id="8131" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">The question is: do Rothschild’s MetaBirkin bags infringe Hermès’ trademark rights? The simple answer is that it depends. Although Rothschild publicly admitted that his works were inspired by the Birkin bag, it does not necessarily mean he does not have a good defense to his works. One, he could claim fair use of the Birkin bag trademarks because his designs are artworks, not trademark use. Under the U.S. trademark law, Rothschild could also claim exceptions as artistic works protected under the First Amendment, which he rightfully claimed in an open letter response to Hermès. To claim protection under First Amendment, Rothschild likely has to prove that his use of the Birkin trademarks is (1) “artistically relevant” to the work and (2) not “explicitly misleading” as to the source of the content of the work. Whether this defense works, it will be up to the judge and jury should Hermès decide to take this case to court.</p> <p id="1027" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">The Hermès v. Rothschild ordeal won’t be the only incident for brand owners. With the flooding of NFTs in the Metaverse, brand owners will have to face the challenge of policing their precious IP against those who seek to profit from it in the virtual world.</p> <p id="c73e" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">The MetaBirkin bag NFTs are relatively easy for Hermès to spot. How about millions of other NFTs currently on sale in OpenSea and other NFT platforms? Do brand owners need a virtual operator to help them scout the virtual world for infringement? Detecting infringement in the virtual poses unique challenges for the tech world. Luckily, we are in the age of artificial intelligence. A.I.-powered tools can be adjusted to meet the new challenges for brand owners in the virtual world. For example, the A.I.-based search engine developed by Huski.ai can be applied to detect “virtual” trademark counterfeiters in the Metaverse. The Huski.ai engine proves to be capable of catching the “smart” counterfeiters on the Internet, who use twisted or cropped images to make it difficult for brand owners to detect infringement. The Huski.ai engine can be redeployed in the virtual world to catch “virtual” infringers using the same technologies. In proving the effectiveness of the search engine, Huski.ai quickly indexed all products listed on <a class="au kw" href="https://www.hermes.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">Hermes</a>.com, which includes about 10,000 images for a wide range of products, such as handbags, shoes, clothes, accessories, home decors, fragrances, makeups, etc. A couple of search results are displayed below. As the results show, Huski.ai’s engine can effectively find similar Hermès products using the MetaBirkins’ NFT as input. As the NFTs are accepted into the mainstream, “virtual” enforcers will undoubtedly play a more significant role for the big IP houses.</p> <div class="sr ss cj st dq su"> <div class="gz ha acf wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*J-QgXq4AKq2JZ70ZqMFXhA.png" alt="" width="700" height="199"></div> <div class="gz ha acf wysiwyg-text-align-center">Huski.ai’s search engine identified similar Hermès Birkin products to Metabirkins’ NFT</div> </div> <div class="sr ss cj st dq su"> <div class="gz ha acg wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*ZZoIGQHETgNeQsZKBH3VCg.png" alt="" width="700" height="207"></div> <div class="gz ha acg wysiwyg-text-align-center">Huski.ai’s search engine identified similar Hermès Birkin products to Metabirkins’ NFT</div> </div>

NFT — The New Wild West for IP Infringement?
<p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img src="/hc/article_attachments/4610745622041/brett-jordan-zVkL5L7eGrw-unsplash.jpg" alt="brett-jordan-zVkL5L7eGrw-unsplash.jpg"></p> <p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">&nbsp;</p> <p id="bbcb" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">Just like taxes, fighting counterfeit is the perennial challenge for brand owners. With online sales taking the dominant role in the 21st century, guarding brand owners’ most precious assets has become more technical than a legal hassle.</p> <p id="7cf2" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Total retail sales for the first quarter of 2021 were estimated at $1,581.4 billion, an increase of 7.8 percent from the fourth quarter of 2020. The first quarter of 2021 e-commerce estimate increased 39.1 percent from the first quarter of 2020, while total retail sales increased 16.8 percent in the same period. E-commerce sales in the first quarter of 2021 accounted for 13.6 percent of total sales.</p> <p id="7d08" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">As the dominant online platform for e-commerce, Amazon enjoys continuing fanatic growth to its sales forces. Through its third-party vendor partnership program, hundreds of thousands of new vendors join the platform each year to sell all kinds of products.</p> <p id="ed8c" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">Competitors like Shopify and others also enjoy phenomenal growth using their proprietary technologies to help vendors set up online shops. However, for brand owners, the ease of setting up online stores or listings makes the counterfeiting problem far worse than before.</p> <p id="64fb" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">Online counterfeiters are getting quicker and smarter. They are getting more sophisticated with advanced algorithms and targeted marketing techniques. For example, a counterfeit watch seller can quickly set up an online store, send a wave of targeted ads to Facebook users, and reappear under a different name and online store. The swift actions by counterfeiters make it difficult for brand owners to catch up. Instead of using famous brand names as part of the listing, counterfeit sellers can use images like the one below to make it difficult for a keyword searcher to find a fake product. In this example, the complete phrase “Calvin Klein” is nowhere to be found. Instead, the picture only shows “…vin Klein” and “Calvin….” It is apparent to a person looking at this product but challenging for a regular search engine like Google to pinpoint.</p> <div class="gz ha zd wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/744/1*ixE4Lc0-TVDTZ71NPZ1bIw.png" alt="" width="372" height="281"></div> <p id="a9c5" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">The anti-counterfeiting law in the U.S. is already tough enough. Statutory damages could go up to 2 million dollars if the defendant is found willful. Even if no willfulness is found, a court can grant statutory damages between $1000 and $200,000 even in cases without an actual sale of the accused counterfeit products. For brand owners, the difficulty of catching counterfeiters is no longer a legal issue; instead, it hinges on how fast brand owners can locate these online counterfeiters and quickly shut them down through temporary restraining orders issued by the court. This is when AI-powered search engines such as Huski.ai come into play.</p> <p id="e237" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">Huski.ai, a Silicon Valley-based tech startup, has recently launched an AI-powered branding analysis and monitoring service. Its trademark search engine is particularly powerful for difficult design mark searches and could become a powerful tool for a brand owner to catch carefully disguised online infringers. In the example shown below, the Huski.ai search engine searched an online store and accurately located the infringing symbol on a jersey that counterfeits the logo for the NBA Cleveland Cavaliers team.</p> <div class="sr ss cj st dq su"> <div class="gz ha ze wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*5CKcGBJZt503XlPOp5t05Q.png" alt="" width="700" height="450"></div> </div> <p id="c8ff" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">Huski also offers intelligent tools for trademark registrability and online infringement analysis. For trademark litigators, Huski’s litigation tool provides valuable insights and docket entries for all trademark infringement cases in U.S. district courts. It could soon relieve a trademark litigator from relying on the clumsy and costly Pacer system.</p> <p id="b55d" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">With a powerful tool like Huski.ai, a brand owner can rest assured that no “smart” counterfeiter can get away from infringement with tricky techniques. If an online marketplace like Amazon or Aliexpress employs an AI-powered tool like Huski.ai to scan its new online listings, can we finally root out the growing problem of online counterfeiting? While it may take a more powerful engine to police an enormous marketplace like Amazon.com, the emergence of Huski.ai and similar tools are indeed off to a good start.</p>

Can an AI-Powered Solution Be the Panacea for Rampant Online Counterfeiting?

ENGINEERING

<p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img src="/hc/article_attachments/4610932486553/mick-haupt-eQ2Z9ay9Wws-unsplash.jpg" alt="mick-haupt-eQ2Z9ay9Wws-unsplash.jpg"></p> <p class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">&nbsp;</p> <p id="5d75" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">When we create new things, we differentiate. To claim that differentiation, we iron a brand to it: a unique identifier that represents itself. To grow those new things we’ve created, we market its brand. We’ve been doing this for about 5000 years, from the ancient Egyptian artisans to the modern Metaverse content creators. Branding activities have always been and will always be a centerpiece of innovation and culture.</p> <p id="652d" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">Currently, a brand could be a piece of text, an image, or a multimedia clip, which claims its uniqueness among others in the same domain and conveys its own ideas. Brand identity could appear in many forms online: product descriptions, social media posts, you name it, and the internet hosts a wealth of these brand images. When consumers view a brand’s image, they associate it with their preconceptions about the brand and how it compares to other brands. Successful branding creates positive relationships with consumers who carry a perception of the brand’s quality and trustworthiness. Creators want to know whether people feel good about their brand, whether there are copycats of their brand, whether they need to grow into new sectors, and so much more. However, the tools available today for brand creators to address those key questions are insufficient and short-term–like duct tape on a leaking pipe.</p> <p id="a9e4" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">This is why we focus on developing a search engine for branding activities.</p> <h1 id="93bd" class="zf zg rq cg zh zi zj zk fp zl zm zn fs hx zo hy fv ib zp ic fy if zq ig gb zr gw">Challenges</h1> <p id="67e6" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz zt fo tb tc zu fr te tf zv th ti tj zw tl tm tn zx tp tq tr gd gw">Immediately, we’re facing a number of big technical challenges (existing tools are like duct tapes for a reason).</p> <p id="c197" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw"><strong class="in fm">Data Challenges</strong>. We need a scalable data infrastructure to gather branding information. Our goal is bold and simple: our dataset should be large and specific enough to answer the following questions.</p> <ol class=""> <li id="f7bf" class="wt acu rq in b sz ta tc td tf acv tj acw tn acx tr acy acz aea aeb gw">How many brands are there in the whole world? How do they differentiate their brand image from others and convey their unique message? Which companies own them and what do they do? How each brand is perceived by its customers?</li> <li id="68c6" class="wt acu rq in b sz aec tc aed tf aee tj aef tn aeg tr acy acz aea aeb gw">What are all the products being sold on earth right now? What are their brands and how do they protect the brands?</li> <li id="d31f" class="wt acu rq in b sz aec tc aed tf aee tj aef tn aeg tr acy acz aea aeb gw">What is the knowledge graph that involves brand owners, sellers, products, infringement cases, attorneys and law firms look like, and how do we derive insights from this graph?</li> </ol> <p id="15eb" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">Unlike other vertical search engines, e.g, Google Scholar or Yahoo Finance, a brand search engine is much more challenging even at the data level. We must reach the far corners of the web to gather image, text, and multimedia data that are suitable. In addition to domain-specific data sources, we need to harvest information from the vast expanse of the web and establish our own standardized, dynamic, and heterogeneous dataset. This process is like getting the berries out clean from a chantilly cake. Precision and scalability are key.</p> <div class="gz ha aeh wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1220/1*-2UJBKAI8UREkgtdPqI_bw.png" alt="" width="610" height="298"></div> <p id="5286" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw"><strong class="in fm">Algorithmic Challenges</strong>. Brand recognition turns out to involve many fundamental challenges to the field of AI. I will elaborate on image and text respectively.</p> <p id="d2bd" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">Brand Recognition in Images</p> <p id="ffd4" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">Goal: Recognize any brand appearances in any given image</p> <div class="sr ss cj st dq su"> <div class="gz ha aei wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/0*GucXeqgpMImIwCgx" alt="" width="700" height="388"></div> </div> <p id="a1dc" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">Challenges</p> <ol class=""> <li id="b726" class="wt acu rq in b sz ta tc td tf acv tj acw tn acx tr acy acz aea aeb gw">Class Explosion. Usually, object detection or recognition models deal with class numbers ranging from 1 ~ 1000. For example, in autonomous driving, the models are taught to recognize 20~30 traffic objects. In the great benchmark of MS COCO, there are 80 classes and 1K classes in the ImageNet. In our case, there are more than 1 million brands that appear in pictorial forms in the US alone. Moreover, it’s even difficult to collect enough training instances of them, let alone labeling a significant part of them. The table below summarizes the class explosion challenge.</li> </ol> <div class="gz ha aej wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1196/1*Gcdagi1RxIyRPp6itVLvmA.png" alt="" width="598" height="380"></div> <p id="f663" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">2. Object Variety in Branding Images. First, there could be image/text hybrid, or even language hybrids. Second, the objects could be really abstract. Third, there could be distortion, angling, different lighting conditions, complex backgrounds, and so on. The model needs to be reliable against all of these conditions.</p> <div class="gz ha aek wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/846/0*VWhd1O7K89hAqaqx" alt="" width="423" height="468"></div> <p id="d59a" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">3. Appearance Variety per Brand. As it shows below, one brand concept could appear in a variety of forms. The concept is the same, however, the appearances could vary dramatically. The model must learn the fundamental themes of a brand’s concepts instead of colors or textures — as the majority of the pretrained benchmark models do.</p> <div class="sr ss cj st dq su"> <div class="gz ha ael wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/0*DZPSLtb2AUfXqv6N" alt="" width="700" height="321"></div> </div> <p id="8845" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">Brand Recognition in Text</p> <p id="5b11" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">Goal: Detect any mentions about a brand, its products, and the product features in any given text.</p> <p id="0819" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">Challenges</p> <ol class=""> <li id="6f09" class="wt acu rq in b sz ta tc td tf acv tj acw tn acx tr acy acz aea aeb gw">Context Matters. The majority of English words are actually registered brand marks. However, when we use the words, we don’t always refer to their branding meanings. Therefore, simple word matching would never work. Here is an example. (<strong class="in fm">brand</strong>, <strong class="in fm">product</strong>, and product <strong class="in fm">feature</strong> being labeled with red, green, and blue respectively.)</li> </ol> <div class="sr ss cj st dq su"> <div class="gz ha aem wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1148/1*M7I7sY_WKYd6-2tNSaKNbQ.png" alt="" width="574" height="97"></div> <div class="gz ha aem wysiwyg-text-align-center">[branded words under different contexts]</div> </div> <p id="b967" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">2. Grammar Sometimes Does Not Matter. Especially in the eCommerce domain, a product title could be literally written as “<em class="nl">chicago dogs zephyr patron hot dog grey adjustable strapback cap</em>”, which breaks the majority of NLP models trained with normal grammar sentences.</p> <p id="93cc" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">3. Abbreviations are everywhere. For example, one could write “<em class="nl">my new NB shoes are very comfortable. It says it only weighs 10 oz. Crazy</em>!” Our model must learn the different names, including slang, of a brand in order to gather all instances of a brand’s usage.</p> <p id="28a1" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw"><strong class="in fm">Infrastructure Challenges</strong>. A comprehensive knowledge graph that provides insight into all brands, their products, and related companies is still in the works. Currently, Huski supports the largest knowledge graph in the field. However, there are millions of brand images that appear in image or text forms. There are also billions of products. All those entities form a graph with edges representing all kinds of relations that are consistently changing and growing. Being able to build and maintain such a dynamic knowledge graph and support low latency queries (e.g. 200ms) is another challenge to our data infrastructure.</p> <p id="64bb" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw"><strong class="in fm">Last but not least, we are a startup</strong>. It goes without saying that we need to be smart about solving all the above challenges while staying on budget. To say the least, it’s difficult.</p> <h1 id="736e" class="zf zg rq cg zh zi zj zk fp zl zm zn fs hx zo hy fv ib zp ic fy if zq ig gb zr gw">Breakthroughs</h1> <p id="dce8" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz zt fo tb tc zu fr te tf zv th ti tj zw tl tm tn zx tp tq tr gd gw">Despite the challenges, we wouldn’t be writing this article if we haven’t advanced in all of those directions. In particular, we are proud to share a couple of breakthroughs that made the first branding search engine possible.</p> <ol class=""> <li id="a474" class="wt acu rq in b sz ta tc td tf acv tj acw tn acx tr acy acz aea aeb gw">We’ve found a way, without labeling any data, to reliably detect over 1,000,000 pictorial brands in real-life images. Learning by unsupervised show-and-tell, our model represents what’s possible at the frontier of computer vision. It learns to detect brands even in very challenging scenarios.</li> </ol> <div class="sr ss cj st dq su"> <div class="gz ha aen wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*xqVe_Yd0cR-FfXRt5aCB3g.png" alt="" width="700" height="413"></div> <div class="gz ha aen wysiwyg-text-align-center"><span class="wysiwyg-color-black50">[Nike Logos on phone cases (upper side) were identified and recognized by the model]</span></div> </div> <div class="sr ss cj st dq su"> <div class="gz ha aeo wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*D_aNIlcLC_6NHOvOeI-GJQ.png" alt="" width="700" height="334"></div> <div class="gz ha aeo wysiwyg-text-align-center"><span class="wysiwyg-color-black50">[My personal favorite: Decepticon being identified :) ]</span></div> </div> <p id="76fb" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">The model can also go further to recognize highly blurred, distorted, and textured brand materials. See how our model still recognizes the Monster logo when Google Image Search gives some irrelevant grey images.</p> <div class="sr ss cj st dq su"> <div class="gz ha aep wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*Da2EXQKkSMGNBTTtr5aheQ.png" alt="" width="700" height="278"></div> <div class="gz ha aep wysiwyg-text-align-center">[Accurate logo recognition for a challenging case (left) v.s. Google Image Search (right)]</div> </div> <p id="6786" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">2. We’ve found a way, without labeling any data, to reliably detect over 3,000,000 textual brands in texts. Our model recognizes the brand name, the product, and the product features in common English or product titles or descriptions. The model uses a new paradigm — named entity recognition with entailment learning — to classify brands. It also recognizes the context so that it wouldn’t blindly treat every word as “brand” simply because they appeared in a “brand mark database”. A few examples are as follows. (Color code: brand /product /product features)</p> <div class="gz ha aeq wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1114/1*jF-W4P7lxOqn4UfnixAS2w.png" alt="" width="557" height="78"></div> <p id="44d6" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">3. Multitask search. We are also the first to introduce “multitask search” in a brand search engine. People can use the combination of image and text in one single query and get a unified search result. The picture below shows how we use it in a trademark registrability analysis. More applications of multitask search to come later.</p> <div class="sr ss cj st dq su"> <div class="gz ha ack wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*TgLYzgM5PQupDty-m-oXbQ.png" alt="" width="700" height="138"></div> <div class="gz ha ack wysiwyg-text-align-center">[search image + text in one go]</div> </div> <div class="sr ss cj st dq su"> <div class="gz ha acl wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*4oVh0lXNHRWyPgcQSykEog.png" alt="" width="700" height="247"></div> <div class="gz ha acl wysiwyg-text-align-center">[Text results shown at the first half of the list]</div> </div> <div class="sr ss cj st dq su"> <div class="gz ha acm wysiwyg-text-align-center"><img class="dq sv sw" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*k1a_OyP8wNvWZhN_E1WzAA.png" alt="" width="700" height="375"></div> <div class="gz ha acm wysiwyg-text-align-center">[image results shown at the second half of the list]</div> </div> <p id="5521" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">4. We found a way to efficiently harvest branding data across all Internet, including central marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, or independent places like Shopify sites. We also keep monitoring all brand/trademark registrations, lawsuits, and other dynamics within the US. Our knowledge graph is derived, by the AI breakthroughs, from such data and we are proud of serving the queries very efficiently.</p> <h1 id="16e6" class="zf zg rq cg zh zi zj zk fp zl zm zn fs hx zo hy fv ib zp ic fy if zq ig gb zr gw">Conclusion</h1> <p id="9fad" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz zt fo tb tc zu fr te tf zv th ti tj zw tl tm tn zx tp tq tr gd gw">Although we’re still in the early days of our search engine, we are very excited to see the future possibilities which could help creators discover their brand’s footprint, understand the contexts, and take actions to protect and grow their brands. The challenges are unique and exciting. The technologies are capable of enabling many things. And we are just getting started.</p> <p id="7d06" class="pw-post-body-paragraph sx sy rq in b sz ta fo tb tc td fr te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr gd gw">Visit <a class="au kw" href="http://www.huski.ai" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">www.huski.ai</a> to find out more!</p>

Search@Huski: A New AI Milestone for Understanding Branding Information

  When we create new things, we differentiate. To claim that differentiation, we iron a brand to it: a unique identifier that represents...