Your name can mean
everything. It is what people associate with your brand and it is what will
inevitably define your business in the minds of others. Therefore, it is
imperative that you choose a name for your business that is original and that
will stick in the minds of your target clientele. It is also important that
once you have the perfect name for your business, that you protect it so that
people don’t confuse your business with someone else’s. Below are some of the
finer points of what one can expect when using NUANS (Newly Upgraded Automated
Name Search) for registering or incorporating their business.
Not all provinces are created equal
No matter which province
you live in, you will need to file a name search report. But, depending on
where you live, you may have to file a name search report within your own
province’s database. What NUANS actually refers to is a database for the
following jurisdictions: P.E.I., Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario and
Alberta, as well as the database of Canadian Federal Corporations. If you are
registering your business in Quebec, for example, you don’t need to conduct a
NUANS report, but you can if you wish. Doing so will give you an insight into
whether or not someone has registered a business with the same, or similar,
name as yours in another province, specifically those included in the NUANS
database.
Don’t forget that no
matter what insight you glean from any name search report that you are
ultimately responsible for ensuring that your company name does not infringe on
any third party rights.
The varied depths of NUANS search
Filing a NUANS report
carries with it a fee to conduct the report. As a cost saving mechanism, it is
possible to conduct a preliminary report at the fraction of the cost of a full
report – a preliminary search costs about $0.23. However, the preliminary
report only eliminates proposed names with exact matches to the names of other
companies. A full NUANS report provides an even greater depth of insight by
reporting company names that may be close, or could even illicit confusion, but
costs significantly more and is required to register your business within the
given jurisdiction. The reason a preliminary report can be beneficial is by
allowing you to quickly ascertain whether or not a certain company name is
available or not without the commitment of a full NUANS report. If you are
satisfied with your company name, and its availability, you can then file for a
full report and register your business.
Ordering a NUANS search report
Although there does
exist a NUANS self-serve website, it is preferable in most cases to obtain your
NUANS search report with the assistance of a NUANS registered member. The
reason for this is that the self-serve website is limited to conducting NUANS
reports for federal corporations. On the other hand, there are a variety of
NUANS registered members available to you that are capable of not only filing
the search report, but also of guiding you through the process of registering
your company.
Please visit CorporationCentre.ca for more information and to order your NUANS Report!
