FACTS ASSERTED BY THE COMPLAINANT AND NOT CONTESTED BY THE RESPONDENT:
THE DOMAIN NAMES ARE IDENTICAL OR CONFUSINGLY SIMILAR TO A TRADEMARK OR SERVICE MARK IN WHICH THE COMPLAINANT HAS RIGHTS
The Complainant is the leading Italian banking group and also one of the protagonists in the European financial arena. Intesa Sanpaolo is the company resulting from the merger (effective as of January 1, 2007) between Banca Intesa S.p.A. and Sanpaolo IMI S.p.A., two of the top Italian banking groups.
Intesa Sanpaolo is among the top banking groups in the euro zone, with a market capitalisation exceeding 47,5 billion euro, and the undisputed leader in Italy, in all business areas (retail, corporate and wealth management). Thanks to a network of approximately 4,600 branches capillary and well distributed throughout the Country, with market shares of more than 13% in most Italian regions, the Group offers its services to approximately 12.3 million customers. Intesa Sanpaolo has a strong presence in Central-Eastern Europe with a network of approximately 1.100 branches and over 7,7 million customers. Moreover, the international network specialised in supporting corporate customers is present in 27 countries, in particular in the Mediterranean area and those areas where Italian companies are most active, such as the United States, Russia, China and India.
The Complainant is the owner, among others, of the following registrations for the trademarks “INTESA SANPAOLO”:
- International trademark registration n. 920896 “INTESA SANPAOLO”, granted on March 07, 2007, in classes 9, 16, 35, 36, 38, 41 and 42;
- EU trademark registration n. 5301999 “INTESA SANPAOLO”, applied on September 08, 2006 and granted on June 18, 2007, in classes 35, 36 and 38;
- EU trademark registration n. 5421177 “INTESA SANPAOLO & device”, applied on October 27, 2006 and granted on November 5, 2007, in classes 9, 16, 35, 36, 38, 41 and 42.
Moreover, the Complainant is also the owner, among the others, of the following domain names bearing the sign “INTESA SANPAOLO”: “INTESASANPAOLO.COM, .ORG, .EU, .INFO, .NET, .BIZ” and “INTESA-SANPAOLO.COM, .ORG, .EU, .INFO, .NET, .BIZ”. All of them are now connected to the official website <intesasanpaolo.com>.
On September 11, 2017, the Respondent registered the domain names <INTESASANPAOLO-ONLINEACCESSO.COM> and <INTESASANPAOLO-ONLINEACCESSO.INFO>.
The disputed domain names are connected to a website called “Playseat”, in which accessories (namely driver simulators) for home video game consoles such as PlayStation, Xbox and Wii, are commercialized.
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