NO ADMINISTRATIVELY COMPLIANT RESPONSE HAS BEEN FILED.
PARTIES' CONTENTIONS:
COMPLAINANT:
Preliminary issue on the language of the proceeding
The Complainant is an Italian company, while the Respondent is a Chinese citizen and the language of the registration agreement is Chinese.
Given the above, the present Complaint was written in English, a third international language comprehensible to a wide range of Internet users worldwide, including the ones living in Italy and in China.
Paragraph 11 of the Rules aims at ensuring fairness in the selection of language by giving full considerations to the parties’ level of comfort with each language, English seemed to be the fair language in the present proceeding.
Furthermore, it is true that there are no evidences of an agreement between the Complainant and the Respondent to the effect that the proceedings should be in English. However, it is not possible to ignore that the present dispute has been started because the Respondent deliberately registered a domain name which is identical to a well-known registered trademark legitimately owned and used in Italy and in English speaking countries around the world. Since it is inconceivable that the Respondent was not aware of such circumstance when it registered the disputed domain name, the Complainant believes that a fair solution shall be – at least – to accept the Complaint as filed in English, accept a Response in either English, or Chinese (or the preferable language of the Respondent, if any) and appoint a Panel familiar with such languages.
So, in accordance with the instructions submitted by the CAC, for the reasons described above, the Complainant requests the Panel to maintain English the proceeding language or, at least, one of the languages accepted by the Panel.
Identical or confusing similarity
The Complainant submits that the disputed domain name <APPRENDOINTESASANPAOLO.COM> is identical, or – at least – confusingly similar to its INTESA SANPAOLO and INTESA trademarks.
The Complainant contends that the disputed domain name exactly reproduces its well-known trademark INTESA SANPAOLO, with the mere addition of the Italian term “apprendo” even though the domain name at stake does not correspond to the name of the Respondent, who is not commonly known as APPRENDOINTESASANPAOLO.
Absence of rights or legitimate interest
The Respondent has no rights on the disputed domain name, and no use of the INTESA SANPAOLO and INTESA trademarks has been authorized by the Complainant. Nobody has been authorized or licensed by the above-mentioned banking group to use the domain name at issue.
The Complainant did not find any fair or non-commercial uses of the disputed domain name.
Bad faith registration and use
The INTESA SANPAOLO and INTENSA trademarks are distinctive and well known all around the world.
The fact that the Respondent has registered a domain name that is confusingly similar to the INTESA SANPAOLO and INTESA trademarks indicates that the Respondent had knowledge of the Complainant’s trademark at the time of registration of the disputed domain name.
In addition, if the Respondent had carried even a basic Google search in respect of the wordings “INTESA SANPAOLO” and “INTESA”, it would have identified the Complainant,
The disputed domain name is connected to a website sponsoring, among others, banking and financial services, for which the Complainant’s trademarks are registered and used.
Consequently, Internet users, while searching for information on the Complainant’s services, are confusingly led to the websites of the Complainant’s competitors, sponsored on the websites connected to the domain name at issue.
Therefore, the Complainant deems that the Respondent has registered and is using the domain name at issue in order to intentionally divert traffic away from the Complainant’s web site.
The Complainant also claims that the Respondent’s commercial gain is evident, since it is obvious that its sponsoring activity is being remunerated.
The Respondent has intentionally attempted to attract, for commercial gain, Internet users to his website, by creating a likelihood of confusion with the Complainant’s mark as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of his web site.
It deemed that the Respondent has registered and is using the domain name at issue in order to intentionally divert traffic away from the Complainant’s web site.
|