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 Sekhem – Hong Kong Trademarking
This page
is for people using the word Sekhem in Hong Kong. The date of posting is December 2006. This website also has separate pages
relating to the trademarking of Sekhem in the
European Union, Australia
and in the USA. Click here
for the European Union page, click here
for the Australia page and
click here
for the USA
page.
Background to the Notice
In
November 2006, I posted to this website a Notice regarding the successful
application by Helen Belôt to trademark the name
SEKHEM within the European Union. Helen Belôt is the Australian Energy Master
who works with the Sekhem energy. That Notice contained passing references to
the trademarking of Sekhem in Australia, the USA
and Hong Kong also. I subsequently received
e-mails from healers in some of these countries asking for further
information so thought it appropriate to post to this website trademarking details for those countries.
It would
be helpful if readers of this page could read also the legal concepts
outlined in the Notice for the European Union trademarking
in case any might be relevant in Hong Kong.
The
purpose of all the postings to this website regarding the trademarking
of Sekhem around the world is to provide information and to give people
affected by the trademarking some idea of the
questions which they should be asking rather than try to give definitive
position statements. Please note that I am not a qualified legal practitioner
and people affected by the various trademarkings
should seek the appropriate legal advice for their individual situations.
The Intellectual Property Department of the Hong
Kong Special Administrative Region
The Intellectual Property Department is
the name of the Hong Kong Government organisation
that has responsibility for the administration of patents, trade marks, designs
and copyright protection in Hong Kong. The
home page for its website is at http://www.ipd.gov.hk/ .
Search
for Sekhem related registered trademarks on the Hong Kong
SAR Intellectual Property Department database http://ipsearch.ipd.gov.hk/index.html
gives the following result. The result is the copyright of the Hong
Kong SAR Intellectual Property Department.
Trademark Number: 200113728
Trademark Status: Registered
Trademark: HELEN BELOT SEKHEM
Trademark Type: Ordinary
Trademark Owner: Helen Belot, Australia
Business class for which trademarking approval has been given: Class 42 - health care
services; medical clinic services; naturopath services; massage services;
medical assistance; pharmacy advice; physiotherapy; rest home services;
sanatorium services.
Disclaimer: Registration of this
Trade Mark shall give no right to the exclusive use of the word
"SEKHEM".
Date of registration 29-01-2001
Expiry date 29-01-2018
Implication of the trademark
It would
be advisable for anybody in Hong Kong
affected by the trademark to check with the Intellectual Property Department
that there are no other Sekhem related trademarks which for some reason do not
appear in the online database. Webpage
http://www.ip-prd.net/main_e.htm
refers to the development of an integrated database of trademark and other
similar information for the Pearl River Delta Region and it is possible that
the migration of all Sekhem related trademark information from legacy
databases to the new database is not yet complete.
As
advised above, it would be helpful if readers of this page could read also
the legal concepts outlined in the Notice for the European Union trademarking in case any might be relevant in Hong Kong.
Trademark
200113728 is for a word based trademark
which does not include any logo or other image design. The trademark is for
the use of the three words HELEN BELOT SEKHEM together for Class 42 services
and does not apply to any of these three words used separately. The trademarking
approval is only for what is shown above.
Although
healers in Hong Kong need to be mindful not to place themselves in the
position whereby their use of the word Sekhem could reasonably be considered
to be presenting themselves as providing the same service as the trademark
owner or to be ‘passing themselves off’ in a manner similar to the trademark
owner, it does need to be noted that the word Sekhem by itself does not
appear to be trademarked unless there are other trademarking
approvals in place which do not appear on the online database.
If any
healer who believes that he or she has a legitimate right to work with the
word Sekhem, any direction from a third party not to use the word or the
image should be met with a request for the official trademark registration
number that prevents the usage.
Similarly, third parties should not give direction to people to cease
using the word Sekhem unless they have checked back to the official trademark
registration number on the basis of which they are giving direction. The
reason for making this comment is that it seems to be a common practice
around the world for third parties to say that the word Sekhem is trademarked
when there might not be any trademark in place for the word used by itself.
Thank you.
Robert
15th
December 2006
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