"Sandokan Aikido" Name

Posted 2010-12-17 13:40:45 by Walther von Krenner


I would like to inform the Aikido community that the name "Sandokan Aikido" belongs to me and has been used by me for 30 years. Another Dojo in Montana has been doing business using my name without my permission. Walther v. Krenner, Sandokan Aikido.

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Did the other dojo know that the name was already taken?.......
Not living in the States, how far apart are you from the "other" dojo with yours or the same name?
Is their some kind of infringement as to some copyrights law where this is concerned?

AikiWeb System wrote: Posted 2010-12-17 13:40:45 by Walther von Krenner I would like to inform the Aikido community that the name "Sandokan Aikido" belongs to me and has been used by me for 30 years. Another Dojo in Montana has been doing business using my name without my permission. Walther v. Krenner, Sandokan Aikido. ___________________ ~~~ To submit a news item to AikiWeb's front page, click here. ~~~

What do you exactly mean by belongs to "me". Did you trademark this name and register it with the US patent office??? As far as I understand US law a name can not be copyrighted. I believe it needs to be "trademarked" with the US patent office.

You might want to be careful with statements, like "belongs to me" or "is used without my permission". You making public statements like this might be considered "unfair business practices", if they are not correct or legal.

Mark Gibson wrote: What do you exactly mean by belongs to "me". Did you trademark this name and register it with the US patent office??? As far as I understand US law a name can not be copyrighted. I believe it needs to be "trademarked" with the US patent office. You might want to be careful with statements, like "belongs to me" or "is used without my permission". You making public statements like this might be considered "unfair business practices", if they are not correct or legal.

Exactly as I thought too....If the name legally " belongs to me " there is no need to put the information on this forum, take action...

Henry Ellis
http://aikidoarticles.blogspot.com/

I'm confused. According to your website, http://www.kalispellaikido.net/:

1980 Moved to Montana and started Sandokan Aikido School.
2009 Severed relationship with Sandokan Aikido LLC, helped students found Aikido Kenkyu Dantai.

So how is the name still "yours"?

I remember the day my first teacher (Toyoda, Fumio Shihan) brought me and another student into a class room and proceeded to say that this person was no longer the Dojo-cho of Shinjinkan Dojo (True Mind) giving him instead the honor of being the Dojo-cho of his (At that time) newly built HQ Ryoshinkan Dojo. I was then given the name Shinjinkan (Heart of the Forest) Dojo. These two names have different Kanji and when our teacher passed my good friend went back to using the name Shinjinkan (True Mind) as well he could since the name reflected at that time something of a personal nature to him and my name being the translation of "The Woodlands Aikido Center". Today we are both good friends and recently had a Shinjinkan Dojo Squared Seminar. I know that the name Shinjinkan is used by several other entities and I am glad that we can all enjoy the reasons why we choose our names or were gifted our names as my friend and I were by our Aikido and Zen Master Fumio Toyoda Shihan. I also happen to know that even though there is more than one Michael Black in the world that there really is only one "Michael Black" Lol!

Multiple unaffiliated dojo with the same name are common in Japan. There are any number of "Shinbukan", some with differing kanji, some with the same. It's just the name of a building; it shouldn't be given undue importance.