A workshop on the use of AI-based investigation tools was presented by the MARQUES Education Team, Cyberspace Team and Famous and Well-Known Marks Team during this year’s Spring Team Meeting.

The Spring Team Meeting is taking place in Frankfurt, Germany this week and about 200 MARQUES Team and Council members are expected to attend.

Cláudia Tomás Pedro, Garrigues Portugal, a member of the MARQUES Cyberspace Team, introduced the workshop topic. She said that investigation can be useful in the context of product development, product promotion, IP enforcement, genericism claims and use of trade marks.

In all these areas, she said, “information is key” to protecting IP assets. That information should be truthful and lawfully obtained and have a fiduciary value.

Information tools available include: test purchases, searches on line marketplaces; searches online networks and online searches. “For all these tools, there are solutions on the market that include AI functionalities,” she said.

Specific tasks where AI can be helpful are image recognition and classification, object detection, object tracking and content-based image retrieval.

Inês Klinesmith, Mintz Group, a member of the Education Team, shared some examples of such solutions. “AI is not quite there as a reliable investigative tool,” she said. “It is helpful but we are a long way off being able to take it at face value.”

“The idea is to proceed with caution,” said Ines. She recommended continuing to use existing tools, adding AI functionalities where appropriate and in compliance with corporate policies. She stressed that MARQUES does not recommend or endorse any particular products.

Useful tools include:

• Grok AI for examining content on X accounts only
• Reverse image search tools such as Google Lens, Yandex Images, TinEye, Bing, Lenso.ai, Etsy App Search, Redcart.ai. “I suggest checking a minimum of two of these tools”, said Ines.
• The RevEye browser extension and ImgOps can help with simultaneous searches across various platforms.

When using these or other apps and websites, Claudia said it is always important to understand the data used by the service and the terms of the service as well as the need for diversification of tools and for human supervision. “There is a blind spot to AI applications … not even the developers know how the results will turn out,” she said.

Earlier today (12 March), the MARQUES Team Leaders meeting was held. Team Chairs/Vice-Chairs shared updates on current projects and discussed the format of the Spring Team Meeting.

Following the presentations, there was a discussion moderated by Dorine Martin, Zurich Insurance, member of the Famous and Well-Known Marks Team. Topics covered included: potential red flags, such as reservation of rights and liability; precautions to take when using AI tools; the consequences of misleading or incorrect results; and examples of the use of AI in enforcement cases.

Questions from the audience concerned commercial tools available from IP companies; the use of common generative AI tools; how to sort and prioritise results; regional divergence in results; and monitoring lookalikes.

The workshop was introduced by Sandra Müller, Squire Patton Boggs, and Charlotte Duly, D Young & Co, respectively Chair and Vice-Chair of the MARQUES Education Team.