FACTS ASSERTED BY THE COMPLAINANT AND NOT CONTESTED BY THE RESPONDENT:
The Complainant is Bürkert Werke GmbH & Co. KG., a German limited partnership company, 100% family owned, and active in the sector of industrial measurement and control technology of fluid and gas. Supplying with its products a wide range of industries (as automotive, biotechnology, chemical industry, electronics, energy, genetic engineering, semiconductor industry, cosmetic, food & beverage and pharma industry, engineering, medical, sanitary engineering, textile industry, packaging and water treatment industry) in 2017 its product sales amounted to 489.9 million euros with an export rate of about 70% with 36 branch offices and over 2.500 employees worldwide.
The Complainant was founded in Germany in 1946 by Christian Bürkert, who began by developing and manufacturing innovative products such as foot warmers, oven controls and thermal control systems for incubators. While these products met the needs of the time, over the years the company increasingly focused on valve technology and soon became an international benchmark for industrial solenoid valves.
The process organization is based on research & development, production, engineering & consulting, delivery, commissioning, training, after-sales-service. The Complainant has 36 branch offices worldwide including 10 in China where the Respondent is based.
The Complainant has registered various domain names consisting of or comprising the word “BURKERT” under several different TLDs, including, inter alia, <burkert.com>, <burkert.com.cn>, <burkert.de>, <burkert.it>, <burkert.fr>, <burkert.net>, <burkert.biz>.
The official websites www.burkert.com and www.burkert.com.cn generate a significant number of visits by Internet users. The Complainant is also active on the main Social Media, like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube and Linkedin.
The disputed domain name (the “Domain Name“) has been used to redirected to a site promoting and offering for sale products purporting to be of the Complainant and of Complainant’s competitors and the Complainant contends that these products are counterfeit.
As soon as the Complainant became aware of the Respondent’s registration and use of the Domain Name, it instructed its representative to address to the owner of the Domain Name a cease and desist letter inter alia requesting the immediate cease of any use of the Domain Name and the transfer of the same to the Complainant.
A cease and desist letter was sent on 13 December 2018, by e-mail to the Domain Name registrant’s known e-mail addresses. Following two reminders on 11 January 2019 and 14 January 2019 the web site was deactivated.
|