A NUANS reservation report is a special Name Search report generated by the Canadian Corporate database which is needed before you Federally or Provincially Incorporate. Acquiring a NUANS report before you register your Trade Name/Sole Proprietorship or Partnership is also highly recommended. 

The NUANS report must be searched exactly as it is to be incorporated or registered. 
If the proposed name is not available, then a new NUANS report must be processed for the new name. 
A good name consists of a Distinctive, Descriptive and a Legal element to the name.

• Distinctive element: the unique, or distinct part of your name. ex. "On-Site"

• Descriptive element: this lets the marketplace know what you do. ex. "Oil and Gas Supplies"

• Legal Element: lets the marketplace know if the business is incorporated or registered. ex. Inc., Ltd., Corp., Professional Corporation. If it is a Trade Name registration, then there will be no legal element. 
  Example name: "On-Site Oil and Gas Supplies Ltd."

A NUANS report:

1) Reserves your Proposed name for up to 90 days while you go through the measures to incorporate or register the name as a Trade Name registration.
2) Produces a 5-6 page report of similar existing corporate names registered within the specified Industry and Trademark classifications of the proposed name. Our Corporate Examiners review the report results and recommends the use of the name. 
3) Is intended to restrict new Names being incorporated or registered that infringe upon the name rights of existing businesses. If a proposed name is confusingly similar to an existing name, the proposed name can not be registered.

Your 3-Step NUANS Report

Step 1 - Pre-screen your Proposed Corporate name. We give you access to the Pre-screening area for 5 free prescreen searches (per NUANS report) of the corporate database so that you can view any direct conflicts prior to submitting your formal NUANS report. 

A Pre-screen is a great indication of direct name conflicts, but it is not 100%. Some names are not included in this pre-screen database that are included in the NUANS search database. Therefore, you will see conflicts on the NUANS report that were not in your prescreen. 

Make sure to read through our "How to get the Best Search Results" guide to prescreening to ensure Registerability. If you would like further details on why a proposed name may not be Registerable, please read our Name Search Approval article.  With good pre-screening practices, you will certainly increase the likelihood of your name being registerable.

Step 2 - Ordering your NUANS report. Go through the Order pages to begin your NUANS report. We do need to know about the "Nature of Work" of your proposed business so that we can search the appropriate Industries and Trade Mark classifications to produce the best results available.

We also ask for a small Description of your proposed business so that we can review your Industry and Classification entries and revise as needed.

Step 3 - The Report. Your report will be a 5-6 page electronic .pdf document. This report will contain other names within your particular Jurisdiction, (Alberta, or Federal) that have similar or potentially conflicting names to the name you have proposed. 

If you have purchased the Deluxe or FullServ reports then you will also receive Our Opinion letter stating if we recommend the use of the name or not. We also outline what names are a direct conflict, and how you can improve your proposed name. 

If you do order the Basic NUANS report, we will still quickly peruse your NUANS report, and make you aware if your name is not Registerable. At that time, we will invite you to contact us so that we can help with your Pre-screen searches or provide further assistance.

Once you, or we have determined if the proposed name is registerable or not, then the next step would be to fill out the Incorporation or Trade Name/Partnership Registration documents through our Products/Services link.

Don't forget that you can also register your Incorporation, Trade Name and Partnership from this site as well. 

Consultations and questions are always free, and you are welcome to Contact Us with any concerns you might have.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to Contact Us.