Eveli.com UDRP: Respondent scores Reverse Domain Name Hijacking finding

The domain Eveli.com was targeted in a UDRP by Mengjia Li, who operates a jewelry business under the name “Eve Li” via the matching domain eveli.co.uk.

She registered the trademark EVE LI FINE JEWELLERY in 2024. The disputed domain, however, was registered by Respondent zhou zong wen in 2005—nearly 20 years earlier, according to the UDRP.

The Complainant alleged long-standing personal and commercial use of the “Eve Li” name dating back to 2005, but provided little evidence beyond a single email address from a gemology school application. Negotiations by the Complainant to purchase the domain broke down after a final offer of RMB 34,500 ($4,800 USD) prompting the UDRP filing.

The Respondent argued he had no knowledge of the Complainant prior to 2025 and had legitimate reasons for holding the domain, which contained no jewelry-related content. The panel found no evidence of bad faith registration or targeting and emphasized the Complainant’s trademark rights arose long after the domain was created.

Final decision: Deny the transfer of Eveli.com to the Complainant. Additionally, the panel found Reverse Domain Name Hijacking by the Complainant.

Note: Our research shows that the Respondent acquired the domain in 2012.

Mengjia Li (Eve Li) v. zhou zong wen

Claim Number: FA2505002156311

PARTIES

The Complainant is Mengjia Li (“Complainant”), represented by Mengjia Li, Thailand. The Respondent is zhou zong wen (“Respondent”), China.

REGISTRAR AND DISPUTED DOMAIN NAME

The domain name is eveli.com (the “Domain Name”), registered with Alibaba Cloud Computing Ltd. d/b/a HiChina (www.net.cn).

PANEL

The undersigned certifies that he has acted independently and impartially and to the best of his knowledge has no known conflict in serving as Panelist in this proceeding.

David L. Kreider, Chartered Arbitrator (UK), as Panelist.

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

The Complainant submitted a Complaint to Forum electronically on May 20, 2025; Forum received payment on May 20, 2025.

On May 20, 2025, Alibaba Cloud Computing Ltd. d/b/a HiChina (www.net.cn) confirmed by e-mail to Forum that the eveli.com domain name is registered with Alibaba Cloud Computing Ltd. d/b/a HiChina (www.net.cn) and that the Respondent is the current registrant of the name. Alibaba Cloud Computing Ltd. d/b/a HiChina (www.net.cn) has verified that the Respondent is bound by the Alibaba Cloud Computing Ltd. d/b/a HiChina (www.net.cn) registration agreement and has thus agreed to resolve domain disputes brought by third parties under ICANN’s Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the “Policy”).

On May 27, 2025, Forum served the Complaint and all Annexes, including a Chinese and English Written Notice of the Complaint, setting a deadline of June 16, 2025, by which the Respondent could file a Response to the Complaint, via e-mail to all entities and persons listed on the Respondent’s registration as technical, administrative, and billing contacts, and to postmaster@eveli.com. Also on May 27, 2025, the Chinese and English Written Notice of the Complaint, notifying Respondent of the e-mail addresses served and the deadline for a Response, was transmitted to the Respondent via post and fax, to all entities and persons listed on the Respondent’s registration as technical, administrative and billing contacts.

A timely Response was received and found to be complete on June 13, 2025.

On June 16, 2025, pursuant to Complainant’s request to have the dispute decided by a single-member Panel, Forum appointed David L. Kreider as Panelist.

Having reviewed the communications records, the Administrative Panel (the “Panel”) finds that Forum has discharged its responsibility under Paragraph 2(a) of the Rules for Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the “Rules”) “to employ reasonably available means calculated to achieve actual notice to Respondent” through submission of Electronic and Written Notices, as defined in Rule 1 and Rule 2.

RELIEF SOUGHT

Complainant requests that the domain name be transferred from Respondent to Complainant.

PRELIMINARY ISSUE: LANGUAGE OF PROCEEDING

The language of the registration agreement for the Domain Name is Chinese. Under the Rules, paragraph 11(a), absent an agreement between the parties, or unless specified in the Registration Agreement, the language of the administrative proceeding shall be the language of the Registration Agreement. However, paragraph 11(a) of the Rules allows the Panel discretion to determine the language of the proceeding having regard to all the circumstances.

Here, the Complainant, who is Chinese, requests that English be adopted and asserts that the use of English as the language of this proceeding is the most fair, accessible, and administratively efficient option for all parties. The Respondent, who is also Chinese, makes no objection to using English as the language of this proceeding. The Respondent’s Response is written in English and evidentiary documents submitted by the Respondent reflect the Respondent’s proficiency in English.

Considering all relevant circumstances of the case, including the parties’ ability to understand and use the proposed language, in the spirit of fairness and justice to both parties, the Panel decides that English will be the language of this administrative proceeding.

PARTIES’ CONTENTIONS

A. Complainant

The Complainant, Mengjia Li, runs an online business selling jewellery principally via the web address eveli.co.uk. The Complainant (whose surname is “Li” and whose given name is “Mengjia”), alleges that the name “Eve Li” is the Complainant’s long-used personal and professional identity, supported by continuous commercial use since 2005. The Complainant alleges that she used the name “Eve” in her professional email address from the time she began training as a jeweler and that the mark “Eve Li” is distinct, non-generic, and uniquely associated with the Complainant in the jewelry trade.

The Complaint alleges that the Respondent previously pointed the Domain Name to a website which offered the Domain Name for sale. The parties exchanged several offers and counteroffers over the WeChat messaging application. The Complaint alleges that the negotiations broke off at a selling point of RMB 34,500 (about US$ 4,800) and that around this same time the Respondent changed the “for sale” page on the Respondent’s website, replacing it with a sign-in page bearing the site name “EVELI” and the message (written in Chinese): “Welcome Back to Eveli”.

Describing the Respondent’s changing of his website upon the break-down of the negotiations as “troubling”, the Complainant alleges:

“A particularly troubling aspect of the Respondent’s conduct is the deliberate and sudden creation of a false ‘enterprise login page’ at the [Domain Name]. This landing page … mimics a legitimate corporate or email login interface, but leads nowhere and appears functionless. It was posted only after the Respondent was made aware of the Complainant’s intent to file a UDRP complaint”.

B. Respondent

The Response alleges that the Complainant’s legal name is Mengjia Li and not “Eve Li”, and that the latter is a commonly used personal name that should not be monopolized by any single party.

The Respondent asserts that before receiving the complaint, he had begun to lawfully use or was preparing to use the Domain Name for purposes such as e-mail communication and “other business-related uses”.

The Respondent alleges that the Domain Name was registered in 2005, long before the Complainant’s trademark “EVE LI FINE JEWELLERY” was registered and that, before May of 2025, the respondent did not know about the existence of the Complainant’s trademark and there was no bad faith registration.

The website to which the Domain Name resolves has contained no content related to jewellery, the Response asserts, and does not interfere with the Complainant’s trademark. When the Complainant inquired regarding the purchase of the Domain Name, the Respondent told the Complainant that he needed to use the Domain Name for his own purposes and “could not sell it at a low price”. There was no attempt to profit. But the Respondent alleges, based on the timeline comparing the Complainant’s trademark registration and the Complainant’s inquiry about the Domain Name, the Complainant seems to plan to acquire the domain at a low price or is acting in bad faith by instituting this UDRP administrative proceeding.

FINDINGS

1. The Respondent, zhou zong wen （周宗文）, registered the Domain Name eveli.com on March 24, 2005.

2. The Complainant, Li, Mengjia, is reflected as the grantee/owner of U.S. Registration Number 7,526,973 for the trademark EVE LI FINE JEWELLERY registered on October 8, 2024.

3. The Complainant’s only evidence supporting her allegation that she “used the name ‘Eve’ in her professional email address from the time she began training as a jeweler”, includes an application form to a gemology school in Thailand dated July 19, 2005, signed by the Complainant, “Mrs. Mengjia Li”, which includes the contact email address: “evedandan@hotmail.com”.

4. The Complainant cannot prove the third element at Policy Paragraph 4(a)(ii) that the Respondent registered and is using the Domain Name in bad faith or that the name “Eve Li” is the Complainant’s long-used personal and professional identity, supported by continuous commercial use since 2005, or that the mark “Eve Li” is distinct, non-generic, and uniquely associated with the Complainant in the jewelry trade, as alleged.

5. During the period from August 2022 through February 2023, the Complainant exchanged offers and counteroffers with the Respondent, but no sale and purchase of the Domain Name was concluded. The Complainant alleges that the negotiations broke off when she made a “threat” to the Respondent that she would institute the present UDRP proceeding.

DISCUSSION

Paragraph 15(a) of the Rules instructs this Panel to “decide a complaint on the basis of the statements and documents submitted and in accordance with the Policy, these Rules and any rules and principles of law that it deems applicable.”

Paragraph 4(a) of the Policy requires that Complainant must prove each of these three elements to obtain an order that a domain name should be cancelled or transferred:

(1) the domain name registered by Respondent is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which Complainant has rights; and

(2) Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name; and

(3) the domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.

ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSION

Policy Paragraph 4(a) requires that Complainant must prove each of the three elements to obtain an order that a domain name should be cancelled or transferred, including the third element – that the domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.

It is well-established in UDRP jurisprudence that panels will not normally find bad faith by the respondent who registers a domain name before a complainant accrues trademark rights. See WIPO UDRP Overview 3.0, at par. 3.8.1.

Here, the Complainant’s only evidence adduced in support of her claim to common law trademarks rights in the mark “EVELI” extending back in time to 2005 when the Respondent registered the Domain Name eveli.com, is a school of gemology entrance application form in which the Complainant, under her own name, Mengjia Li, provided the contact email address “evedandan@hotmail.com” (containing the name “EVE”) along with her own lawful name, Mengjia Li. The Panel notes, that the Complainant’s own surname “Li” appears nowhere in the email address she provided in the gemology school application.

The Complainant’s more recent evidence of use in commerce of the name “EVE LI” in connection with her jewellery business is also sparse and dates back no earlier than 2021, some 16 years after the Respondent registered the Domain Name.

The totality of the Complainant’s evidence is not enough to establish common law trademark rights in the EVE LI name and the Complainant’s registered rights in the EVE LI FINE JEWELLERY mark obtained as of October 8, 2024, some 19.5 years after the Domain Name was registered by the Respondent.

The Complainant cannot prove the third element at Policy Paragraph 4(a)(ii) that the Respondent registered and is using the Domain Name in bad faith or that the name “Eve Li” is the Complainant’s long-used personal and professional identity, supported by continuous commercial use since 2005, and that the mark “Eve Li” is distinct, non-generic, and uniquely associated with the Complainant in the jewelry trade, as alleged. The Panel sees no reason to set out its views in relation to each of the three elements under Policy Paragraph 4(a) in this Decision.

Having considered the allegations of the parties and the evidence adduced, the Panel finds that the Complainant cannot prove “bad faith” registration of the Domain Name by the Respondent because the Complainant’s rights in the registered mark EVE LI FINE JEWELLERY arose nearly 20 years after the Domain Name was registered by the Respondent.

The Panel considers that, although the Respondent no doubt expected in 2005, when he registered and posted for sale the Domain Name eveli.com, that a potential buyer would come forward, the Respondent could not have had the Complainant specifically in mind, as the Complainant’s EVE LI FINE JEWELLERY business would not even begin to establish a reputation or recognizable name for itself until two decades later.

Reverse Domain Name Hijacking

The UDRP Rules, paragraph 15(e), provides:

“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 was brought primarily 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”.

Here, the Panel notes that the Complainant, who is acting pro se and is not represented by legal counsel in this proceeding, refers repeatedly to her “threats of legal action” and “UDRP threat” against the Respondent. The Complainant admits to making these threats when her attempts to negotiate the purchase of the Domain Name from the Respondent broke off. While it may be reasonable to conclude that the use of “threat” was merely a less-than-optimal choice of words by an unrepresented party, the Panel still considers that the Complainant’s overall conduct supports a finding that this UDRP proceedings was a so-called “Plan ‘B'” and a way calculated by the Complainant to wrest the Domain Name out of the hands of the Respondent, knowing she had no legitimate right to do so under the UDRP.

Against the background facts explained above, where the Complainant has adduced no reliable evidence supporting her allegation that the name “Eve Li” is the Complainant’s long-used personal and professional identity, supported by continuous commercial use since 2005, and that the mark “Eve Li” is distinct, non-generic, and uniquely associated with the Complainant in the jewelry trade, where the available evidence shows the Complainant’s registered rights in the mark EVE LI FINE JEWELLERY arose nearly 20 years after the Domain Name was registered by the Respondent, the Panel finds this UDRP proceeding was instituted by the Complainant in bad faith and is reverse domain name hijacking by the Complainant.

DECISION

Having not established all three elements required under the ICANN Policy, the Panel concludes that relief shall be DENIED.

It is Ordered that the eveli.com domain name REMAIN WITH the Respondent.

The Panel further finds this UDRP proceeding was instituted by the Complainant in bad faith and is reverse domain name hijacking by the Complainant.

David L. Kreider, Panelist

Dated: June 20, 2025

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