For analysts and marketers

Start on the screening page. Upload the image of your concept by clicking the image area or dragging the file onto it, type the name or slogan in Text to search, or do both, and press Positioned Screening. The configuration screen opens. In Search Data you see your image and the Search Text, which may already contain words the AI has read in the image, marked AI suggested. In Search Configuration give the screening a Reference you will recognise, such as the project and the version of the idea, then check the Jurisdictions: those of your account's country are ticked by default, and you can add or remove others where the brand will be used, bearing in mind that this changes the cost. Open Toggle More Options to tick the Nice classes for the goods and services concerned, or type a product or service in Products/Services and press + to have the classes ticked for you; none ticked means all classes. Press Screening, which becomes available once the image has been analysed. The Confirmation of Purchase window shows the cost and your balance; press Proceed, or pay through Payment Options if the balance is short. A table then shows each result type loading and turning Ready, and the results open on the Summary view, with the Distribution Chart and Map view next to it.

You can screen any trade mark concept made of an image, words or both. A logo or a symbol goes in the image area, and it does not have to be finished: a scanned sketch, a draft from your design tool or a mock-up is fine, as long as the sign itself is clearly visible. A name, a word mark or a slogan goes in Text to search; there is no separate slogan field, so a slogan is simply typed as text. You may also combine the two, for example a logo and the brand name that will go with it, in a single screening. What you enter decides which comparisons are made. An image gives the Conceptual and Chromatic results, about what the picture represents and the colours it uses, together with how it looks; a text gives the Textual results, about the words. Both together give all of them. If you press Positioned Screening with nothing selected, Genius tells you No image or text selected. Please select an image or insert a text to search. Genius compares concepts with existing registered trade marks only: it is not meant for screening inventions, patents, designs, domain names or company names. If you have several alternatives, screen each one separately with its own Reference, because Screening List is not yet available.

As early as you can, and more than once. Genius is designed for the creation phase: the moment when a name is still a shortlist, a logo is still a sketch and a slogan is still being argued about. Screening at that point costs little and tells you whether the idea is heading into a crowded field or towards a conflict with an earlier mark, before anyone has paid for final artwork, packaging, a website, product development or a presentation to the client. A good rhythm is to screen the main alternatives when you have them, so that you can drop the risky ones and focus on those that look freer; to screen again whenever the concept changes significantly, because new colours, a new symbol or different wording can change the result; and to screen the chosen version in the jurisdictions and Nice classes where it will really be used before it is presented or approved. Note that if you change the parameters of a screening you have already run, Genius creates a new configuration and prices it again. When a concept is close to final, consider upgrading to a Detailed Screening or a full search, or use Darwin GSE, and involve your IP adviser before filing, because a screening is an indication, not legal advice.

On the screening page, click the image area to choose a file from your computer, or drag the file from a folder and drop it onto the area. Genius takes one image at a time; if you want to try another, upload it in the same way to replace the current one, or remove it with the bin button in the corner of the area, Delete image. Accepted formats are PNG, BMP and JPEG; anything else is refused with Invalid Image. Once the image is in, you can add a name or slogan in Text to search and press Positioned Screening. A few habits give better screenings. Isolate the sign: crop the file beforehand so it shows the logo or symbol itself rather than a whole poster, a label or a product photo, because Genius has no crop tool and compares the whole image you send. Use a plain, preferably white or transparent, background and avoid shadows, frames or mock-up scenery around the sign. Keep the real colours if the colours are part of the idea, since they are compared in the Chromatic dimension, and make sure the image is sharp enough for the shapes and any lettering to be clear. If the logo contains words, the AI may read them and offer them as Search Text, which you can keep, edit or clear.

Genius accepts images in PNG, BMP and JPEG, including all the usual JPEG file extensions: .jpg, .jpeg, .jfif, .pjp and .pjpeg. If you choose or drop a file in any other format, such as a PDF, a vector file straight from your design tool, a GIF or a WebP, Genius shows Invalid Image and the file is not loaded. The remedy is simple: open the sketch or design in the program you made it with and export or save it as PNG or JPEG. PNG is often the better choice for logos, because it keeps sharp edges and flat colours and can have a transparent background, while JPEG is fine for photographs of sketches or scanned drawings. Before exporting, crop the picture to the sign itself and keep a plain background, since Genius compares the whole image and has no crop tool of its own; also export it at a size where the shapes and any lettering are clear. Only one image can be screened at a time, so if your concept has several versions, export each one separately and screen each with its own Reference. If you only have a name or a slogan, you do not need an image at all: type it in Text to search.

Type the name, word mark or slogan in Text to search on the screening page and press Positioned Screening. There is no separate field for slogans: a slogan is typed as text, just like a name. On the configuration screen the text appears as Search Text, where you can still correct it, and you then give the screening a Reference, check the Jurisdictions and, under Toggle More Options, the Nice classes for the goods and services the name or slogan will be used for, before pressing Screening. A text gives the Textual results, which compare your words with the words of existing registered trade marks; while the screening runs you will see Textual in the progress table change from Loading... to Ready, and the results then show the textual dimension in the Summary view, the Distribution Chart and the Map view. Type the text exactly as it would be used, with its real spelling, and avoid adding generic words that are not part of the brand. If the name will appear in a logo, you can upload the logo too and screen both together, which adds the image comparisons to the textual one in a single screening. To compare alternative names, screen each separately with a clear Reference, for example the project and option A or B.

When you give Genius both an image and a text, a single Positioned Screening looks at your concept from every angle it can. From the image it compares how your sign looks with existing marks, and it adds two further dimensions: Conceptual, about what the image represents or means, and Chromatic, about its colours. From the text it adds the Textual dimension, which compares your words with the words of existing marks. While the screening runs, the progress table lists Conceptual, Chromatic and Textual, each changing from Loading... to Ready. The results then bring the dimensions together: the Summary view gives one overall reading of whether oppositions are possible with the world map, the Distribution Chart shows four charts, Graphical, Conceptual (BETA), Chromatic and Textual, and the Map view shows one map per dimension. This is the natural choice when the brand will be used as a logo with its name, because a conflict can arise in any of these ways, and seeing them together tells you which part of the concept, the picture, the colours or the words, needs attention. It is one screening, confirmed and paid once in the Confirmation of Purchase window, rather than two separate ones, and the report contains all four dimensions.

When you upload an image, Genius uses AI to read any text that appears in it, such as the brand name inside a logo, and fills it in for you as the Search Text on the configuration screen. You can tell it apart because it is marked AI suggested. The idea is to save you typing and to make sure the words in your logo are also compared in the Textual dimension. You stay in control: if the reading is right, leave it; if the AI has misread a letter or picked up something that is not part of the brand, such as a tagline or a placeholder, correct it; and if you want to screen the image alone, press Clear to empty the field. This is particularly useful in the creation phase, when the wording is often still open: you can replace the text in the sketch with the name you are actually considering, or screen the same image with different names, one screening at a time, each with its own Reference. Remember that the AI proposes and you decide, and that AI can make mistakes, so always check the field before pressing Screening. If you change the text after running a screening, Genius treats it as a new configuration and prices it again.

Reference is your own name for the screening, given in the Search Configuration panel. If you leave it as it is, it shows a default such as Positioned Screening, but a name you will recognise is far more useful, because the Reference follows the screening everywhere. It appears on the screening's card in the strip at the top of the page, where hovering shows it with the other details, so you can tell your screenings apart and reopen the right one; it is shown when you confirm the purchase, so you know exactly what you are paying for; and it is printed on the exported report, which is what you will keep and share. If anything goes wrong with a screening, quoting its Reference to support also helps them find it. A good habit is to include the project or client, the concept and the version, for example Café Aurora logo A or Aurora name B, EU and PT, so that when you compare alternatives, the cards and the PDF files speak for themselves. Choose the Reference before pressing Screening: it is part of the configuration, so changing other parameters later creates a new configuration that you will want to name as well.

The strip at the top of the screening page collects the screenings of your current session: each screening you run gets its own card there, and the + button, Search another, takes you back to start a new one without losing the others. Hovering over a card shows its details: the Reference, the Search type, the Search Text, the Jurisdictions, the Nice classes, shown as All when all 45 are included, and the Semantic concepts. Clicking a card reopens that screening with its results, so you can move between alternatives and compare them. A screening you have already paid for can be reopened from its card without paying again, and from there you can export it to PDF or Excel. The strip belongs to the session, however: it is cleared when you sign out, and Genius does not keep a separate history screen of past screenings. So export the report of every screening you want to keep, give each one a clear Reference so the files are easy to find, and keep the PDFs with the project. If you switch to another account, remember that credits and reports belong to the account selected at the time.

Not yet. On the screening page you will see a Screening List button, which opens a form for up to 10 concepts at a time, each row with its own image and text, a counter showing how many rows you have used out of 10, and + and - buttons to add or remove rows. The idea is to screen a set of alternatives in one go. However, Screening List is not yet available, so it cannot be used to run screenings for the moment. In the meantime you can do the same work one concept at a time with Positioned Screening. Screen each alternative separately, giving every one a clear Reference that names the project and the option, for example Aurora logo A, Aurora logo B and Aurora logo C, and use the same jurisdictions and Nice classes for all of them so that the comparison is fair. Each screening gets its own card in the strip at the top of the page, so you can reopen them during the session and move between their results, and you can export the report of each to PDF or Excel to set them side by side and keep them with the project, since the strip is cleared when you sign out.