ARBITRATION AND MEDIATION CENTER ADMINISTRATIVE PANEL DECISION Destination Liquid LLC v. Edgar Cohen Case No. D2025-3655 1. The Parties The Complainant is Destination Liquid LLC, United States of America (“United States”), represented by Sanchez Fischer Levine LLP, United States. The Respondent is Edgar Cohen, United States. 2. The Domain Name and Registrar The disputed domain name is registered with Squarespace Domains II LLC (the “Registrar”). 3. Procedural History The Complaint was filed with the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center (the “Center”) on September 9, 2025. On September 11, 2025, the Center transmitted by email to the Registrar a request for registrar verification in connection with the disputed domain name. On September 11, 2025, the Registrar transmitted by email to the Center its verification response confirming that the Respondent is listed as the registrant and providing the contact details. The Complainant filed an amended Complaint on October 3, 2025. The Center verified that the Complaint and amended Complaint satisfied the formal requirements of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the “Policy” or “UDRP”), the Rules for Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the “Rules”), and the WIPO Supplemental Rules for Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the “Supplemental Rules”). In accordance with the Rules, paragraphs 2 and 4, the Center formally notified the Respondent of the Complaint, and the proceedings commenced on October 20, 2025. In accordance with the Rules, paragraph 5, the due date for Response was November 9, 2025. The Respondent did not submit any response. Accordingly, the Center notified the Respondent’s default on November 11, 2025. The Center appointed W. Scott Blackmer as the sole panelist in this matter on November 12, 2025. The Panel finds that it was properly constituted. The Panel has submitted the Statement of Acceptance and Declaration of Impartiality and Independence, as required by the Center to ensure compliance with the Rules, paragraph 7.
page 2 4. Factual Background The Complainant is a limited liability company established under the laws of the State of Florida, United States, with a postal address in Miami, Florida. The Complaint offers essentially no other information about its business and does not mention a related website or social media site. The Panel notes that the online database of the Florida Division of Corporations shows that the Complainant was registered on February 27, 20251. The Complainant states that it recently acquired the MAMA’S trademark registered by the Respondent’s company, Mama Munchies LLC (“Mama Munchies”), by assignment from one of its creditors, pursuant to a court order. The Complainant now seeks to obtain in this proceeding the disputed domain name that the Respondent evidently registered on behalf of Mama Munchies and that Mama Munchies formerly used for its website. The Registrar reports that the disputed domain name was created on October 13, 2022, and is registered to the Respondent, listing no organization, a postal address in the State of Florida, and a Gmail contact email address. The Panel notes that the Florida Division of Corporations database shows that the Respondent was listed as an Authorized Member of Mama Munchies LLC when it was registered as a Florida limited liability company on October 1, 2020. The Panel notes as well that the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine has screenshots of a website associated with the disputed domain name headed with a MAMA’S logo as early as April 7, 2023, and throughout 2024 advertising cannabis drinks and free shipping. Later, in April 2025, the Shopify landing page at that address displayed the message, “This store does not exist”. At the time of this Decision, the disputed domain name resolves to a landing page indicating that a Shopify store page will be “opening soon”. According to the online database of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”), Mama Munchies LLC applied on October 5, 2023, to register the MAMA’S figurative logo that appeared on the Mama Munchies website, a mark consisting of the word MAMA’S in stylized letters. The mark was registered (Registration Number 7512800) on September 24, 2024, in international class 32 for “soft drinks”. The Complainant furnishes a copy of an Order dated July 16, 2025, ordering the transfer of rights in the MAMA’s trademark registration from Mama Munchies to the Complainant in a judicial proceeding in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida, MIA Retail Systems Inc. et al v. Mama Munchies LLC, Case No. 2025-000062-CA-01. According to the Order, this was in partial satisfaction of creditors’ judgments. The Panel notes that this is duly reflected in an assignment recorded on the USPTO database. 5. Parties’ Contentions A. Complainant The Complainant contends that it has satisfied each of the elements required under the Policy for a transfer of the disputed domain name. Notably, the Complainant contends that it now holds the MAMA’S trademark registration by virtue of the court order and assignment described above and that the disputed domain name incorporates that trademark and is therefore confusingly similar. The Complainant asserts that the Respondent no longer has any rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name, as the Mama Munchies beverage business “has since ceased operation due to lack of funds”, and the Respondent’s company no longer owns the corresponding trademark and has no permission from the Complainant to use it. 1Noting the general powers of a panel articulated in paragraphs 10 and 12 of the Rules, it is commonly accepted that a panel may undertake limited factual research into matters of public record, as the Panel has done in this proceeding. WIPO Overview of WIPO Panel Views on Selected UDRP Questions, Third Edition (“WIPO Overview 3.0”), section 4.8.
page 3 The Complainant recognizes that the Policy’s requirement to prove bad faith in the registration and use of the disputed domain name is conjunctive and that the Respondent originally registered the disputed domain name in connection with the Mama Munchies business. However, the Complainant cites “some recent decisions” (from 2009), such as Octogen Pharmacal Company, Inc. v. Domains By Proxy, Inc. / Rich Sanders and Octogen e-Solutions, WIPO Case No. D2009-0786 (Octogen), arguing that “bad faith registration can be deemed to have occurred even without regard to the state of mind of the registrant at the time of registration, if the domain name is subsequently used to trade on the goodwill of the mark holder”. Some of these cases articulated the theory that a registrant thereby breached its “continuing” warranty of good faith made at the time of registration. The Complainant contends that the Respondent’s conduct in maintaining the disputed domain name after the court-ordered assignment of the MAMA’S trademark “leaves no doubt” about the Respondent’s bad faith and “can retroactively convert the registration into one made in bad faith”. B. Respondent The Respondent did not reply to the Complainant’s contentions. 6. Discussion and Findings A. Identical or Confusingly Similar It is well accepted that the first element functions primarily as a standing requirement. The standing (or threshold) test for confusing similarity involves a reasoned but relatively straightforward comparison between the Complainant’s trademark and the disputed domain name. WIPO Overview 3.0, section 1.7. The Complainant has shown rights in respect of a trademark or service mark, (the figurative MAMA’S mark) for the purposes of the Policy. WIPO Overview 3.0, section 1.2.1. The Panel finds the mark is recognizable within the disputed domain name. Accordingly, the disputed domain name is confusingly similar to the mark for the purposes of the Policy. WIPO Overview 3.0, section 1.7. Although the addition of other terms (here, “sip”) may bear on assessment of the second and third elements, the Panel finds the addition of such term does not prevent a finding of confusing similarity between the disputed domain name and the mark for the purposes of the Policy. WIPO Overview 3.0, section 1.8. The Panel finds the first element of the Policy has been established. B. Rights or Legitimate Interests Given the Panel’s finding on the third element, it is not necessary to analyze this element of the Complaint. C. Registered and Used in Bad Faith The Complainant acknowledges the Respondent’s connection with Mama Munchies at the time the Respondent registered the disputed domain name in October 2022. The Respondent could not have sought to exploit the Complainant’s reputation in bad faith in 2022, because the Complainant did not exist then. The record indicates instead that the Respondent registered the disputed domain name on behalf of his own company, which then used it for a website and obtained trademark registration for a corresponding mark. Even if the Complainant could somehow be said to stand in the shoes of the Respondent given its acquisition of the trademark by assignment (in which case for arguments’ sake it may benefit from priority rights based on the date of the first use in commerce of the relevant mark – an argument it did not make (it only asserted to have “superior and exclusive rights”)), this would not answer the question of the need to show bad faith on the part of the Respondent at the time of the registration of the disputed domain name.
page 4 The Complainant makes an argument for bad faith in the registration of the disputed domain name only by advancing a strained application of the “retroactive bad faith” theory based on Octogen and similar decisions from 2009 and 2010 that have been rejected by later panels as inconsistent with the Policy’s conjunctive requirement to demonstrate bad faith both in the initial registration and in the subsequent use of a disputed domain name. WIPO Overview 3.0, section 3.2.1. Surely if the Complainant came to know of the Octogen case, it can be said to also have knowledge of the WIPO Overview section explaining that it is not good law. The Panel notes that the Complainant is free to pursue other legal remedies if it considers that the Respondent’s use of the disputed domain name infringes the trademark rights that the Complainant has recently acquired. But transfer is not an available remedy under the UDRP without evidence of bad faith at the time the Respondent registered the disputed domain name, which is not the case here. The Panel finds the third element of the Policy has not been established. D. Reverse Domain Name Hijacking Paragraph 15(e) of the Rules provides that, if after considering the submissions, the Panel finds that the Complaint was brought in bad faith, for example in an attempt at Reverse Domain Name Hijacking or to harass the domain-name holder, the Panel shall declare in its decision that the Complaint was brought in bad faith and constitutes an abuse of the administrative proceeding. The mere lack of success of the complaint is not, on its own, sufficient to constitute reverse domain name hijacking. WIPO Overview 3.0, section 4.16. Despite the lack of a Response in this proceeding, the Panel finds that the Complaint has been brought in bad faith and constitutes an attempt at Reverse Domain Name Hijacking. The Complainant did not exist and had no trademark rights at the time the disputed domain name was registered. The Complainant relies on a theory of “retroactive bad faith” that has not been followed by Policy panels in the last decade, without advancing reasoned arguments for changing let alone challenging the consensus view on this issue. 7. Decision For the foregoing reasons, the Complaint is denied. /W. Scott Blackmer/ W. Scott Blackmer Sole Panelist Date: November 26, 2025
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