RI.SI.CO.

The project is focused on the evolution of the RI.SI.CO. framework (Search for Counterfeit Sites), enabling it to automatically identify counterfeit web sites included in the search engine results related to a specific brand and product. The processing of the results of Ri.SI.CO. will allow the phenomenon of online counterfeiting to be studied and a free personalized reporting service to be implemented for companies.

• Societal impact: through reports and data aggregations, it will aid the understanding of the phenomenon of counterfeit websites and will provide a knowledge base to assist policy makers.
• Economic impact: through a service aimed at companies provided by the Dgtpi-Uibm, it will simplify the adoption of effective measures to defend trademarks and the Made in Italy brand.
• Academic impact: through scientific publications based on automatic learning methods, it will foster the discovery and analysis of counterfeit web sites.

The Directorate General for the Fight against Counterfeiting – Italian Patent and Trademark Office (Dgtpi-Uibm) of the Ministry of Economic Development signed an agreement with the Foundation Ugo Bordoni for technical support and development activities. The RI.SI.CO. (Search for Counterfeit Sites) project is one of the activities planned and it will focus on counterfeit electronic commerce sites. The planning of the activities of the RI.SI.CO. is broken down into three work packages:

• Workpackage 1

The expansion and extension of the RI.SI.CO. will be carried out on the basis of the following internal upgrades:

• • Maintenance and updating of the RI.SI.CO. demonstrator
  • Upgrading of RI.SI.CO. search engine query tools
  • Improvement, updating and evaluation of the classification process of RI.SI.CO.
  • Internationalization of RI.SI.CO.
  • Adaptation of RI.SI.CO. to new brands and commercial sectors
  • Optimization of computational efficiency and robustness of RI.SI.CO.
  • Post-processing of the output of RI.SI.CO.

• Workpackage 2

This activity consists in the design and implementation of a service for companies that will enable them to obtain access to the RI.SI.CO. and personalized reporting through data visualization technologies. Data, including the list of violating sites, comparative analyses with other brands, the detection of clusters of the most dangerous sites and identification data, will be made available to each company.

• Workpackage 3

This activity consists of scientific and technical support for the anti-counterfeiting activities conducted by the Dgtpi-Uibm, through in-depth analyzes of key issues in the protection of trademarks, patents and designs, and breaches of intellectual property rights.