Google images offers a relatively basic image search, but if the database in witch to search does not exist, it is rather difficult to create an visual search algorithm.

But I find irrelevant the process of copying someones work and claiming it as ones own. One can copy the images, but the design process behind them is known only by the original.

I mean, I can look at the works of Foster and in an excess of ignorance claim them as my own, but surely I cannot recreate the same design process in different environment conditions.

if you could do that for patent and copyright infringement, it'd be a hit. but sometimes two or more people come up with very similar ideas at the same time yet never having crossed paths. in this case, it would depend on who holds more influence and power to protect themselves first. i think the search keyword is "simultaneous invention".

the old intellectual property mindset. do ideas really have much value? can someone lay claim to ideas? it seems contrary to the world of art and open knowledge when one thought often spark or influence others in a progressive line.

Bugsmetoo has a very valid point and with the internet it makes it easy to learn that someone else has already at least had the idea. The hard thing about ideas is making them happen and getting them out there. This is why you may see a new firm or a portfolio with massive projects often citing at what firm they were actually created, by the now new small firm principal or interviewee who might of been a former large firm partner. At a minimum one should acknowledge the fact that the idea without a serious infrastructure would have never happened and in turn the large firm should allow the individual to claim the ideas.