According to the evidence submitted by Complainant, the word "SBK" stands for the World Superbike Championship, which has evolved exponentially since its inception in 1988, when the series broke ground as a production-based motorcycle-racing program. The appeal of SBK Championship was the fact that teams were running production motorcycles (highly modified, but none the less production-based). SBK fans could see the same motorcycles that were on their local dealership's floor mixing it up at speed on the racetrack.
The disputed domain name <sbkrider.com> was registered on 23 March 2019. The trademark registrations of Complainant have been issued prior to the registration of the disputed domain name.
According to Complainant the disputed domain name is confusingly similar to Complainant's trademarks as it incorporates Complainant’s distinctive trademark SBK in its entirety. The disputed domain name is potentially directed to motor-bikers, indeed that is clear considering the association between the trademark SBK and its association with “riders”. In effect, the most distinctive part of the disputed domain name domain is SBK, which is placed in the beginning.
According to Complainant, Respondent has no rights or legitimate interest in the disputed domain name and Respondent is not related in any way with the business of Complainant. Respondent is not using the disputed domain name to offer any goods or services. The disputed domain name does not resolve to any active website. The reference SBK in the disputed domain name has been used in order to attract surfers to the site. Moreover, attracting users to an inactive website is an actual risk and a serious damage as well, because it induces surfers to think that SBK has no website or even worst, that they lost it; circumstances not true given that Complainant has several domain names and an active popular website. Complainant also asserts that Respondent has no registered trademark rights in the world of motorbike-racing and, in particular, in the world of SBK. On the contrary, Complainant has registered SBK trademarks since many decades, as well many domain names including the SBK trademarks, and Complainant is widely and commonly recognized as the owner and the responsible organization for the SBK world motorbike championship.
According to Complainant the disputed domain name is registered and is being used in bad faith. Given the distinctiveness of Complainant's trademarks Complainant submits that the registration of Complainant’s trademarks pre-dates the registration of the disputed domain name and that Respondent has never been authorized by Complainant to use these trademarks nor to register the disputed domain name.
Considering that Complainant’s trademark is a well-known, distinctive mark worldwide, including in China where the Respondent is located, and that Respondent has been passively holding the disputed domain name Complainant therefore concludes that Respondent has been using the disputed domain name in bad faith. The fact that there is currently no use of the disputed domain name must, logically, lead to the conclusion that Respondent keeps it passively to the detriment of the legitimate holder, being aware that such passive holding prevents the rightful holder of the corresponding trademark to use it as a domain name.
|