A recent ruling by a World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) panel has determined that a cannabis product company attempted to unlawfully acquire the domain name sipmamas.com. The case involved Mama Munchies LLC, which markets cannabis-infused drinks under the name "Mama’s." Destination Liquid LLC claimed to have acquired the "Mama’s" trademark from a creditor of Mama Munchies when the latter went out of business. After obtaining a court order for the trademark transfer, Destination Liquid filed for a Uniform Domain-Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) to gain control of the domain.
However, the UDRP process requires the domain in question to have been registered in bad faith, which was clearly not the case when Mama Munchies secured it. To sidestep this criterion, Destination Liquid introduced the discredited "Octogen" theory of retroactive bad faith. W. Scott Blackmer, the panelist, remarked on the matter:
"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."
Despite the absence of a response from the domain registrant, Blackmer found evidence of reverse domain name hijacking in Destination Liquid’s complaint:
"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."
Sanchez Fischer Levine LLP represented Destination Liquid in this dispute.
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