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The need of finding a way to design a company trademark, without the worry of possible infringement on the intellectual property rights, has become exceedingly important as the economy and the accompanying intellectual property concerns advanced greatly in recent years. Traditionally, registered trademarks are stored in image databases and are categorized and retrieved by descriptions and keywords given by human workers. This is extremely time-consuming and considered by many as inappropriate. In this work we focus on image feature and content related techniques, or content-based image retrieval (CBIR) methods. Nevertheless, we still need human inputs since by law the most crucial basis for discerning the similarity or difference of two trademarks has to rely on human¡¦s naked eye. Therefore in this work we created a program which incorporates an man-machine interface allowing users to input various weighting factors each emphasizing a specific feature or shape of the trademark. The Zernike moments, and some new image compactness indices are used in the computations for image comparisons.

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China has put considerable emphasis on protecting intellectual property (IP) rights since it implemented ‘Reform and Opening-Up’ policy in the late 1970s. The nation has actively participated in communication and cooperation with its trading partners and international society in IP region. In particular, since its accession to the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (Paris Convention) in 1985, China has reformed its socialist legal system to meet international obligations. This trend continued with China’s entry to the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) under the World Trade Organization (WTO) in late 2001. A well-known trademark is a trademark well known by the relevant public. Compared to a common trademark, it will be given higher level of protection against infringements. A well-established well-known trademark legal framework can considerably protect interests of owners of domestic and foreign well-known trademarks. China begun to offer such protection since the 1980s. During the pre-WTO period, it granted well-known status determination on an ad-hoc basis under a ‘Sole-Track’ model which was solely led by administrative authorities. This model has been considered to be weak and offered no systematic protection to well-known trademark holders. China’s admission to the WTO in 2001 pushed the country to create a ‘Dual-Track’ model which incorporates judicial and administrative authorities and to amend its IP laws in compliance with the international norms. Since then, the situation of well-known trademark protection has been considerably improved, although some problems remained. There is, however, widespread criticism in the US government and from some scholars that the IP laws in China governing well-known trademarks are inadequate. However, this is not necessarily accurate, as it is based not on comprehensive legal analysis but on the data mainly collected from interested parties of the US side, whether they are companies or government officials, or a fragment of cases. This thesis adopted doctrinal legal research method to demonstrate and evaluate some substantial legal principles, concepts, rules and policy concerning well-known trademark recognition and protection in China over the past three decades (1985 – 2015). It challenged that criticism by raising four questions and exploring their answers. The legal analysis in this thesis showed that since the 2000s, China has protected well-known trademarks more effectively than before. In conclusion, although some problems remain to be solved, the criticism above should be rejected. Meanwhile, this thesis also offered suggestions of further development, highlighted the need for the competent authorities to continue to reform the laws and policy, and strengthen their enforcement in order to tackle unsolved problems.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1917. / Vita. "Reprinted from Archives of psychology, no. 42." Includes bibliographical references.

The goal of this research was to observe the changes in thickness and chemical characteristics that occur in Kapton® , a type of polyimide film, when exposed to heated solvents commonly used in cleaning and processing of these materials. Interference fringes present in transmission infrared spectra were used to calculate the thickness changes of the film, and attenuated total reflection infrared spectroscopy (ATR) was used to observe spectral shifts of the polymer film. Pieces of Kapton® film were immersed in heated solvents of n-methyl pyrrolidinone (NMP) and dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) resulting in a rapid initial increase of film thickness by about 2.5 um during the first 20 minutes. After the initial increase and throughout the remainder of the 2 hour exposure, the film thickness varied little in the NMP solvent at all temperatures, 67, 95, and 125 oC. However, in DMSO, the behavior was more varied and this behavior was only observed in the 95 oC bath. The change in film thickness throughout the course of the experiment was about 1 μm less in the 125 oC as compared to the 95 oC, perhaps due to dissolution of the film by the solvent. When the film is exposed to heated solvents, a significant shift in the vibrational frequency of the asymmetric carbonyl stretch absorption to higher wavenumbers, as compared to the unexposed film, is observed. This indicates that there is some interaction between the Kapton® film and the solvent such that the strength of the carbonyl bond is lessened. Interactions could disrupt the intra- and intermolecular electron sharing and hinder the formation of the charged resonance form. / Introduction and background -- Preliminary experiments and method development -- Swelling studies on Kapton. / Department of Chemistry

This thesis focuses on the study of solvent degradation on polyimide films. Polyimides spun on silicon and freestanding polyimide films were exposed to solvents as a function of time at a constant temperature. The polyimide spun on silicon was immersed in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) at 90oC for 30, 90, 270, and 450 min. Infrared spectra were obtained via multiple-bounce attenuated total reflection (ATR) and reflection-absorption (RA) spectroscopy. Thickness calculations were made using interference fringes obtained from RA spectra for each time interval. A reduction of thickness was observed with a total difference of 1.5 μm suggesting film degradation as a function of solvent exposure. Spectral changes in the symmetric and asymmetric carbonyl stretching modes were observed in both the ATR and RA sampling, which could be attributed to further curing of the polymer. Two experiments were performed on the freestanding polyimide film. The first experiment exposed the film to DMSO and the second to n-methyl pyrollidinone (NMP). In both instances, the freestanding film was immersed in the solvent at 98oC for 30, 90, 270, and 450 min. Infrared spectra were obtained via single-bounce ATR and transmission spectroscopy. No noticeable differences in spectra were observed. Thickness calculations were made using interference fringes obtained from transmission spectra. After immersion in DMSO, the thickness of the film increased initially, but then no significant changes in thickness occurred after 30 min. The initial increase in thickness may be due to solvent being trapped inside the film. After immersion in NMP, the thickness calculations showed no change in film thickness. However, our data as well as past researchers suggested some increase in thickness must occur due to solvent absorption. We propose that film degradation may be occurring in the NMP at approximately the same rate as swelling, thus no net decrease in thickness could be observed. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that a yellow coloration was visually observed to be in the solvent after immersion of the freestanding film. A subtraction of a spectrum of fresh NMP solvent from the spectrum of the yellow–colored solvent showed bands consistent with polyamic acid, a starting material for the freestanding film, which could have been formed from a hydrolysis reaction. / Literature review and introduction -- Evaluation of sampling techniques -- Film degradation studies on freestanding films. / Department of Chemistry

Thesis (Ph. D)--Columbia University, 1917. / Vita. "Reprinted from Archives of psychology, no. 42." Includes bibliographical references.

No abstract available / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / lmchunu2014 / Private Law / unrestricted